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THE BRANCH LIBRARIES
Canterbury poets,
EDITED BY WILLIAM SHARP.
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
% FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES,
SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK.
ONGS OF FREEDOM.
SELECTED & EDITED,
WITH AN INTRODUCTION,
BY H. S. SALT.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,
LONDON AND FELLING-ON-TYNE.
NEW YORK : 3 EAST I^H STREET.
; :
Z o 3 b
A " ' X *V'D
TlLO. i . .3
CONTENTS.
Holy Thursday ...
From " Auguries of Innocence '
PART I.
ROBERT BURNS PAGE
Poetical Inscription for an Altar to Independence 3
A Man's a Man for a 1 that .... 3
From " The Cotter's Saturday Night " . . 5
Bannockburn : Bruce's Address to his Army . 6
Chorus of " The Jolly Beggars " . . 7
WILLIAM CQWPER ,
Freedom .......... 9
The Morning Dream ........ 9
GEORGE CRABBE
A Scene from " Tne Village " ..... 12
WILLIAM BLAKE
London ........... 13
. . .14
..... 14
ROBERT SOUTHEY
Song from "Wat Tyler" ....... 16
The Slave Trade ... .17
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
France : an Ode ... . la
vi CONTENTS.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH PAGE
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland 22
To Toussamt L'Ouverture . 2?
Hofer .... 03
To Thomas Clarkson ....!!'.'. <?4
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Song" Men of England " . 95
Ode to the Germans . . 26
The Power of Russia . . 28
Stanzas on the Battle of Navarino . . .'30
JAMES HOGG (The Ettrick Shepherd)
The Harp of Ossian ..... 32
THOMAS MOORE
Where is the Slave ? . 33
Oh, the sight entrancing .
Forget not the Field . . . . . ! ." 35
EDWARD LYSAGHT
In Praise of Grattaa . . , 37
LORD BYRON
Sonnet on Chillon . . 39
" Clime of the Unforgctien Kravr' .
The Isles of Greece ..';-. 41
Stanzas . 43
JOHN KEATS
Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition . 44
Written on the day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison '. 45
JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT
Power and Gentleness . 40
To Percy Shelley ..... . .43
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The Hymn of the Liberated Nation? 49
The True Freedom .... 51
Song To the Men of England ... 53
CONTENTS.
vn
England in 1S19 .
The Royal Masque
Chorus in " Hellas " .
Political Greatness
The Triumph of Prometheus
FELICIA HEMANS
The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers
JAMES MONTGOMERY
The Patriot's Pass- Word .
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
The Antiquity of Freedom .
The Greek Partisan .
William Tell. ...
'Seventy-Six The American War of Independence
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Hymn sung at the completion of Concord Monument
I'A'iK
55
55
56
58
58
60
62
64
65
67
67
69
PART II
EBENEZER ELLIOTT
The Revolution of 1832
Battle Song .
Reform .
Song ....
The People's Anthem .
ANONYMOUS
"Union Hymn" .
MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER
The Factory Girl's Last Day
ROBERT NICOLL
The Battle-Word .
The Puir Folk
We are Free
73
74
75
77
78
80
81
84
85
88
viii CONTENTS.
WILLIAM JOHNSON Fox PAGE
Praise to the Heroes . . .... 90
"The Barons Bold" .
HARRIET MARTINEAU
Hymn of the Polish Exiles . 93
THOMAS WADE
A Song of the People ... -94
The Newspaper
T. NOEL
The Pauper's Drive . -97
EBENEZER JONES
A Coming Cry . . . -99
Song of the Kings of Gold
A Slave's Triumph
THE HON. GEORGE SYDNEY SMYTHE
The Jacobin of Paris . -I 05
WATHEN MARK WILKS CALL
Kossuth and the Hungarians .
Mazzini
Protection ....
The Enfranchised Labourer
THOMAS COOPER
Hail, Holiest Liberty
Chartist Song . l
Chartist Chaunt . llb
,T. A. LEATHERLAND
Song Base Oppressors ... -US
CHARLES MACKAY
Clear the Way 12
CONTENTS.
IX
JOHN JEFFREY
The Emancipation of the Press
CHARLES KINGSLEY
Alton Locke's Song
The Day of the Lord .
On the Death of a certain Journal
ERNEST JONES
Song of the "Lower Classes"
Liberty
Hymn for Lammas-Day
The Song of the Wage-Slave
Prison Fancies
Easter Hymn
GERALD MASSEY
The People's Advent .
To-day and To-morrow
Song of the Red Republican
The Men of 'Forty-eight
The Earth for All
MARY HOWITT
The Rich and the Poor
THOMAS LOTE PEACOCK
Rich and Poor ; or, Saint and Sinner
ROBERT BARNABAS BROUGH
My Lord Tomnoddy ....
"A Gentleman" . .
The Strawberry Leaf
" Vulgar Declamation "
WILLIAM JAMES LINTON
The Happy Land
The Coming Day
Patience
The Torch-dance of Liberty
Heart and Will .
PAGE
. 122
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
132
133
135
137
139
141
143
144
146
148
150
151
153
155
156
158
159
161
X
CONTENTS.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR PAGE
Tyrannicide 162
ROBERT BROWNING
The Lost Leader 164
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
The Touchstone 166
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Independence 168
EMILY BRONTE
The Old Stoic 170
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
Independence Day .... ... 171
To an Eloquent Advocate of Indian Righls . , .174
The Triumph of Freedom 175
Hope for the Enslaved 176
ELIZABETH M. CHANDLER
Slave-Produce 178
The Enfranchised Slaves and their Benefactress . . 179
JOHN PIERPONT
The Chain 181
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW
The Warning . 184
The Slave's Dream . 185
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
Song of the Free 187
To Massachusetts 189
Clerical Oppressors 191
The Rendition . 193
Laos Deo 1 . 194
CONTENTS. xi
JAMKS RUSSELL LOWELL PAGE
Stanzas on Freedom .... . 197
The Fatherland , 198
William Lloyd Garrison .... . 199
On the Capture of certain Fugitive Slaves . 201
The Present Crisis . 204
The Pioneer ... . 207
EDMUND H. SEARS
"Old John Brown" 210
JOHN KELLS INGRAM
The Men of 'Ninety-Eight . .... 212
THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS
A Nation Once Again .... . 214
Native Swords .... .... 215
The Green above the Red 217
A Song for the Irish Militia 219
J. DE JEAN FRASER
The Prisoner at the Bar ... ... 221
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
Soul and Country ... .... 224
A Highway for Freedom . .... 226
An Invitation . 227
THOMAS D'ARCY McGEE
The Reaper's Song 229
The Pilgrims of Liberty ... ... 230
Union is Strength . . . . . 232
The Gathering of the Nation.-; . .... 234
RICHARD DALTON WILLIAMS
The Patriot Brave .... ... 235
" SLIABH CUILINN " (nom-de-plume)
Paddies Evermore . . . 23U
xii CONTENTS.
PART III.
WALT WHITMAN PAGE
" For You, O Democracy " . 241
Europe 242
To a foil'd European Revolutionaire . 244
Rise, O Days, from your Fathomless Deeps 246
Turn, O Libertad 249
The Great City . 250
W. C. BENNETT
The Slaver's Wreck 252
The Right above the Wrong . . 253
JAMES THOMSON ("B.V.")-
The Awakening of Italy 256
A Polish Insurgent .... . . 258
Despotism tempered by Dynamite . . 260
JOAQUIN MILLER
Sophie Perovskaya 263
Riel : the Rebel . . 266
JOHN BEDFORD LENO
The Name of Liberty . 267
EDWARD H. GUILLAUME
Freethought . . .269
ROBERT BUCHANAN
The Perfect State 270
The Light of Freedom .... .271
Tom Dunstan ; or, the Politician . .273
THE HON. RODEN NOEL
Arise I ... . .276
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY
Resurgite 1 2 "9
CONTENTS. xiii
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS PAGE
A Vista .281
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
A Plea for Egypt . 284
Sonnet From "In Vinculis " . 285
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
A Song of Scottish Heroes . . . 286
ERIC MACKAY
From "A Choral Ode to Liberty" 238
H. E. CLARKE
A Rebel Riding Song 290
WILLIAM SHEARER-AITKIN
Hurrah for Scotland's Heroes Brave ... 292
ROBERT BIRD
The Freedom of the Hills . .... 294
The Crofter's Farewell . . 296
TIMOTHY D. SULLIVAN
God Save Ireland ! . . . 298
MICHAEL SCANLAN
The Fenian Men 300
ERNEST BILTON
Dives and Lazurus ... .... 802
EDITH BLAND ("E. NESBIT")
All in All .... ... 304
JAMES LEIGH JOYNES
The Roll-call of the Ag? a 306
xiv CONTENTS.
FRED HENDERSON PAGE
The Voice of Freedom . 308
WALTER CRANE
Freedom in America 310
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
Heirs of Time .... ... 311
JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
For the People . . ... 313
FRANCIS A. FAHY
A Rebel Heart . . .316
FANNY PARNELL
Post Mortem . . 318
JOHN BARLAS
Le Jeune Barbaroux .... . . 320
Stanzas from " The Golden City ' . 322
SYDNEY OLIVIER
To a Revolutionary Poet 324
WILLIAM MORRIS
All for the Cause ! . . 326
No Master 328
The March of the Worker, ... . 329
A Death Song . . . 332
FRANCIS W. L. ADAMS
Outside London 333
In Trafalgar Square 334
"Anarchism" . ... .335
To England . . 335
EDWARD CARPENTER
The Smith and the King . . . . 339
England, Arise ! 340
The Age-long War 342
What is Freedom? .... ... 342
PREFACE.
" The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the
awakening of a great people, to work a beneficial change in
opinion or institution, is poetry." Shelley.
" I say, too, we are not to look so much to changes, ameliora-
tions, and adaptations in Politics, as to those of Literature, and
thence domestic Sociology." Whi tman.
THE purpose which I have kept in view in the
compilation and grouping of these Songs of
Freedom has been twofold. It has been my
object, in the first place, to present an adequate
collection of English and American poems illustra-
tive of the growth of the revolutionary ideal
national, social, and intellectual during the past
hundred years, and of the various forms and phases
through which that ideal has passed ; and, secondly,
to arrange the volume in such a manner as to
make it a record of the men no less than of the
movement, of freedom's singers as well as of
freedom's songs. While interpreting the term
" freedom " in a liberal and comprehensive sense,
I have selected only what I judge to be in some
way notable productions, whether by virtue of their
literary excellence or historic association; and I
have for the most part, though by no means
xvi PREFACE.
invariably, avoided the quotation of mere extracts
from poems which were too long to be inserted in
full. Translations have been altogether excluded,
as scarcely coming within the proper scope of the
work.
The " love of liberty," in the full meaning which
those words convey to us, is a sentiment of com-
paratively recent date. From the earliest times,
of course, men have struggled and suffered for
national and civil freedom, and it would be easy to
show from ancient and mediasval literature how the
foreign invader and the domestic tyrant have alike
been a theme for the patriotic poet's denunciation.
But not until the second half of the eighteenth
century not until Voltaire and Rousseau had
unmasked the impostures of a " religion " which
represses thought, and of a "civilisation" which
represses nature did there arise that intense
passion for liberty, in all its manifold aspects,
which has been the chief inspiration of the modern
democratic movement. Then, first, freedom began
to be regarded as not merely the hereditary privi-
lege of some favoured class or community, but a
principle of world-wide extent, the natural and
inalienable birthright of every member of the whole
human race. Whatever we may think of the theory
of " natural rights " (and the controversy concern-
ing it is mostly a mere battle over words), it has
undeniably given a vast impulse and extension to
the modern ideal of freedom.
These subversive doctrines, which took visible
effect in the American Declaration of Independ-
ence in 1776, and in the French Revolution of
PREFACE. xvii
1789, are largely and unmistakably represented in
the English poetry of the last quarter of the
eighteenth century and the first quarter of the
nineteenth; and it will be observed that the first
division of the following Songs of Freedom is made
to cover that period. A typical example of the
reluctance of many men of letters to recognise the
debt which our literature owes to the Revolution,
may be seen in the attempt of the editor of The
Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics to discon-
nect the " splendid national achievements of our
recent poetry" from what he styled "the frantic
follies and criminal wars that at the time disgraced
the least essentially civilised of our foreign neigh-
bours."* Now it is true enough that the French
Revolution was itself a consequence of " that far
wider and greater spirit, which, through enquiry
and doubt, through pain and triumph, sweeps
mankind round the circles of its gradual develop-
ment"; but the Revolution was nevertheless the
crowning and most notable expression of that
spirit, and, as such, reacted powerfully, in its turn,
on all subsequent manifestations. It proclaimed
and popularised everywhere that modern concept
of freedom which is so essentially different from all
that preceded it.
The immediate forerunners of the new demo-
cratic poetry were Cowper, Crabbe, Blake, and
Burns, who all dwelt with much insistence on the
tyranny and inhumanity of various forms of social
and political injustice. The name of Robert Burns,
* Edition of 1861 : " Summary of Book Fourth." This singu-
lar comment is omitted in the latest edition.
9
xviii PREFACE.
in particular, must ever be held in honour by those
who value liberty ; for though but few of his poems
treat directly of that theme, they are all more or
less pervaded by an indomitable spirit of independ-
ence, and his famous " A Man's a Man for a' That"
may be said to strike the keynote of these intro-
ductory songs of freedom the assertion of the
natural equality and personal dignity of man-
kind.
It is worth observing that the earliest post-revolu-
tion literature took a philosophical rather than a
poetical form; it is not with the revolution itself,
but with the reaction consequent on the apparent
failure of revolutionary hopes, that the great poetry
of the Lake School begins. A deep sense of
disappointment is clearly traced in Coleridge's
magnificent " Ode to France," and in the dejected
tone that characterised most of Wordsworth's fine
political sonnets; while Southey, recoiling still
more vehemently from the spirit of his juvenile
" Wat Tyler," became a renegade and traitor to the
popular cause.
This political despondency was far from being
strange or unaccountable. The first quarter of the
present century was described by Sydney Smith as
"an awful period for any one who ventured to
maintain Liberal opinions;" and during the term
of the Regency, in particular, English liberty was
ruthlessly trampled under foot. " In such an age
as this" so Leigh Hunt wrote "the world
requires the example of a spirit not so prostrate as
its own, to make it believe that all hearts are not
alike kept under, and that the hope of reformation
PREFACE. xix
is not everywhere given up." Fortunately such
encouragement was even then at hand, for in the
writings of Byron and Shelley, notably in those
of Shelley, which coincide in date pretty closely
with the period of the Regency, we have as
strenuous and sustained a vindication of human
freedom, as determined a protest against con-
ventional authority, as can be found in English
literature.
What is especially remarkable in Shelley's out-
look is the largeness and breadth of his vision. So
far from being the blind fanatic which some critics
have represented him, he saw more clearly perhaps
than any man of his time certainly more clearly
than any of his fellow-poets that the desired
reformation must be effected not in one field but in
several, that social freedom is as indispensable as
political and intellectual freedom, and furthermore
that each individual must emancipate himself from
the bondage of personal prejudice and desire. The
charge that Shelley wasted his breath in idle
denunciation of kings and priests, while overlooking
the deeper causes of human subjection, is due to
sheer ignorance of his writings, for no poet has
ever more plainly pointed to the fact that true
liberty cannot be co-existent with penury and star-
vation, and that social inequality is primarily due
to the unequal distribution of wealth. It was for
this reason that Shelley was deeply studied and
reverenced by the leaders of no less practical and
important a movement than Chartism.
In this respect we note in Shelley the culmina-
tion of a distinct poetical epoch. The prophet
xx PREFACE.
and pioneer of a new social order, he yet left no
direct successor to carry on his revolutionary
work; and it may be said that his death in 1822
marks the close of the great literary outburst
which signalised the commencement of the cen-
tury. "The disappearance of Shelley from the
world," wrote T. L. Beddoes in 1824, "seems, like
the tropical setting of that luminary to which his
poetical genius can alone be compared, with
reference to the companions of his day, to have
been followed by instant darkness and owl-
season." There ensued a period of about fifteen
years which was not illuminated by any poetry of
a high order; indeed, it was not until after
twice fifteen years that there arose a poet of
Democracy qualified to be considered in any
degree an adequate successor to the author of
Prometheus Unbound.
The second division of our subject coincides,
roughly speaking, with the second quarter of the
century. A new impulse was given to democratic
songs by the political and social excitement that
commenced with the Reform Bill of 1832, and
culminated in the outbreak of 1848 a movement
which was represented in England by the Anti-
Corn Law and Chartist agitations, and in Ireland
by a revival of national spirit which led to an
abortive rebellion,* while in America it was the
abolition of negro-slavery that formed the ideal
* Lack of space has prevented me from doing full justice to
the wealth of the Irish revolutionary songs, and the names of
many patriotic singers are unavoidably omitted in the following
selections.
PREFACE. xxi
of the emancipators. This simultaneous ferment
produced, alike in England and Ireland and
America, a crop of spirited and excellent poetry,
which, if it cannot be classed with the work of
great imaginative writers, has the merit of being
spontaneous and stirring, and admirably adapted
to effect the purpose of its authors. I refer to the
poems of such men as W. J. Linton, Ernest Jones,
and Gerald Massey in England; Thomas Davis,
Clarence Mangan, and D'Arcy McGee in Ireland;
Lowell and Whittier in America.
I trust that, in saying this, I shall not be sup-
posed to underrate these real, if " minor " poets, as
compared with their " greater " brethren ; on the
contrary, I hold that a poem informed by the
genuine passion which love of humanity calls
forth a poem such as Thomas Davis's " Native
Swords," or Ernest Jones's "Song of the Lower
Classes" is often in the truest sense a greater
work, and more deserving of immortality, than
many of the productions of misinformed, or
indifferent, or purely "academic" genius. It is
a remarkable fact, and worth a trifle more con-
sideration than critics are disposed to afford it,
that neither Tennyson nor Browning, neither our
great "representative" poet, nor our great "intel-
lectual " poet, was cognisant of the real drift of the
social movement that dates from the stormy years
of the 'Forties. Judged from the democratic stand-
point (which, of course, is only one standpoint out
of several, but not on that account to be neglected),
these great poets must be admitted to have left
the work to men of less genius, but truer social
xxii PREFACE.
instincts, than themselves ; and to these lesser men
will be the greater honour.
Where, then, is the great singer of modern
democracy ? Who can voice its myriad demand for
freedom and justice as Shelley voiced the high and
sanguine aspirations of the early years of the
century ? In England no such poet has yet made
his appearance; but in Walt Whitman we find
another epoch-making writer, a worthy successor
to Shelley unlike him, it is true, in a thousand
ways, yet manifesting in a sterner and rougher
form the same unquenchable spirit of freedom,
the same unalterable spirit of love. We know, of
course, all the critical objections that are urged
against Whitman's "barbaric yawp" and alleged
lack of style ; but then we remember that Shelle/s
poetry " drivelling prose run mad," as the
Quarterly described it was scarcely less distasteful
to the artistic susceptibilities of seventy years
back ! And if, as seems probable, there be needed
not only a fresh impulse of thought, to create a
new wave of poetry, but also a new vehicle of
poetic expression (a need which would certainly
arise, if anywhere, in the case of that poetry which
has a revolutionary import), we can realise the
supreme significance of Walt Whitman as a singer
of democracy. He has given us a new ideal of
universal comradeship ; and he has given us a new
method of embodying that ideal. His name
inevitably stands at the head of the present era of
revolutionary song.
During this later period the stream of national
and democratic poetry, English, Irish, and Ameri-
PREFACE. xxiii
can, has flowed unchecked ; it is only necessary
to refer to such well-known names as those of A.
C. Swinburne,* James Thomson, Joaquin Miller,
Robert Buchanan, Roden Noel, and John Boyle
O'Reilly. Of recent years it has been in the pro-
gress of the " social revolution " the emancipation
of the working classes from economic serfdom
that the ideal of liberty has been mainly centred ;
and now again, as during the Chartist movement,
a number of singers are beginning to give expres-
sion to these hopes. Of these, three at least, as
typical of the several forms of the movement,
demand special mention. William Morris, as
he presents himself in his later writings, is a
sterling poet of democracy, a living witness to the
fact that the revolutionary faith, so far from being
detrimental to the highest artistic instincts, is a
most efficient preservative of them. In Edward
Carpenters Towards Democracy we have a great
work of profound sympathetic insight, too esoteric,
no doubt, for immediate or general acceptance, yet
not to be lightly passed over by any earnest student
of democracy in its inner spiritual significance.
And lastly, Francis Adams's Songs of the Army
of the Night, a notable little volume which first
appeared in Australia, is anarchist rather than
socialist in tone, for while it is infinitely tender
and compassionate towards all that is simple and
human and unsophisticated, it is fierce, vindictive,
* I regret that I am not permitted to include any of Mr.
Swinburne's Songs before Sunrise in this volume. His fine and
just recognition of the great singer of modern democracy, in the
stanzas addressed "To Walt Whitman in America," would have
been especially appropriate.
xxiv PREFACE.
vitriolic even, in its scathing hatred of the respect-
able and sham-decent that enthral us.
To sum up I regard Shelley and Whitman as
the two most signal embodiments of the revolu-
tionary spirit during the past century ; but, as we
have seen, there have been many other singers
to testify to the same cause with scarcely less
enthusiasm, and all have been animated at heart
by one and the same conviction. The forms of
freedom are many, and are largely determined and
developed, in each era, by political and social
conditions, so that we find the ideal varying,
externally, in each successive period ; but the inner
spirit, that underlies all these manifestations, is
essentially identical throughout. Whether it be
Burns, asserting the natural equality of man ; or
Shelley applying a similar axiom to every grade of
authority ; or Whittier and Lowell, denouncing the
horrors of negro-slavery ; or the poets of " Young
Ireland," with the dream of national independence
for ever before their eyes; or the Chartist and
socialist singers, drawing their moral from the close
inter-connection of poverty and wealth in every
case it has been the same love of human liberty
that has been the inspiration of the song.
It would be easy to point out superficial con-
tradictions between the utterances of one period
and of another ; for example, the " free competition "
which was glorified as a panacea by the anti-corn-
law rhymer of 1830, is denounced by the socialists
of sixty years later as a delusion and sham. But
though the battle-ground and watchword of liberty
may be altered, and though the " liberty " of one
PREFACE. xxv
period may even become the "tyranny" of the
next, there is no change in the spirit of those
who gather round the revolutionary standard; in
whatever age they lived, they would fight on that
side, as surely as their adversaries would rank
among the upholders of inequality and restriction.
The name of freedom may be misused, and
degraded, and associated with much that is abso-
lutely at variance with it ; the thing is for ever one
and unchangeable, and will not be misinterpreted
by those who have the true love of it at heart.
Finally, it must be repeated that liberty is, as
yet, an ideal rather than a reality a fair but intan-
gible vision which has long eluded the eager grasp
of its worshippers. Again and again have the
soldiers of freedom appeared to be on the point of
capturing the central stronghold of the enemy;
again and again has the tyranny rearisen in some
new and unexpected quarter, and the battle has been
bequeathed anew from one age to another, with
the accompanying legacy of suffering, self-sacrifice,
and privation. Our Songs of Freedom must there-
fore of necessity be in great part songs of slavery,
for it is the evils of the present that, by very con-
trast, enhance and emphasise the brighter visions
of the future. Yet there is no need, on this account,
to adopt the despondent views expressed by Cole-
ridge in his " Ode to France." The quest of liberty
is not " profitless " ; our poets of democracy have
not sung in vain. Link by link the chains of serf-
dom are broken : step by step man advances
towards that perfect freedom which can only be
attained by the temporary failure in other words,
xxvi PREFACE.
the eventual success --of innumerable earlier
efforts.
I am indebted to the courtesy of the following
publishers for permission to reprint poems over
which they hold a copyright : To Messrs. Mac-
millan & Co., for Charles Kingsley's poems ; to
Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, & Co., for
Ebenezer Elliott's later poems; to Messrs. Hodder
& Stoughton, for Thomas Cooper's poems ; to
Messrs. Reeves & Turner, and Bertram D obeli, for
James Thomson's poems ; to Messrs. Smith &
Elder, for a poem by Robert Browning; to Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., of Boston, for Whittier's
and Lowell's poems.
I have also to express my gratitude to the large
number of authors, and representatives of authors,
who have kindly allowed me to reprint copyright
poems. In every case but one the permission
asked for was readily granted.
To Mr. Gerald Massey, Mr. W. J. Linton, Mr.
J. O'Donoghue, Dr. W. C. Bennett, Mr. W. M.
Rossetti, Mrs. Bridell-Fox, Mr. J. M. Wheeler,
and Mr. Bertram Dobell, I am under special
obligations for valuable advice and assistance.
H. S. S.
PART I.
Songs of ffree&om.
ROBERT BURNS.
17591796.
POETICAL INSCRIPTION
FOR AN ALTAR TO INDEPENDENCE.
THOU of an independent mind,
With soul resolved, with soul resigned ;
Prepared Power's proudest frown to brave,
Who wilt not be, nor have, a slave ;
Virtue alone who dost revere,
Thy own reproach alone dost fear
Approach this shrine and worship here.
A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT.
Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that ?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We daur be puir, for a' that !
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure and a' that,
The rank is but the guinea stamp
The man's the gowd for a' that.
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin-grey and a' that ;
Gi'e fools their silks, and knaves their wine-
A man's a man for a j that :
For a* that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show and a' that,
The honest man, though ne'er sae puir,
Is king o' men for a' that.
Ye see yon birkie, ca'ed a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that :
For a' that, and a' that,
His riband, star, and a' that ;
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a* that.
A king can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that ;
But an honest man's aboon his micht,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that !
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities and a' that,
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth
Are higher ranks than a' that.
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree and a' that.
For a' that, and a' that
It's comin* yet, for a' that,
When man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that
FROM "THE COTTER'S SATURDAY
NIGHT."
O SCOTIA, my dear, my native soil,
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent !
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health and peace and sweet content !
And, O ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile !
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.
O Thou ! who poured the patriotic tide
That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart ;
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God peculiarly thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward !)
O never, never Scotia's realm desert ;
But still the patriot, and the patriot bard,
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard '
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
BANNOCKBURN.
ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY.
SCOTS, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled !
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led !
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie !
Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lower !
See approach proud Edward's power
Edward ! chains and slaverie !
Wha will be a traitor knave ?
Wha will fill a coward's grave ?
Wha sae base as be a slave ?
Traitor ! coward ! turn and flee !
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Free-man stand, or free-man fa',
Caledonian, on wi' me !
By oppression's woes and pains !
By your sons in servile chains !
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall they shall be free !
Lay the proud usurpers low !
Tyrants fall in every foe !
Liberty's in every blow 1
Forward ! let us do, or die !
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
CHORUS OF "THE JOLLY BEGGARS."
A FIG for those by law protected !
Liberty's a glorious feast !
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
What is title? what is treasure?
What is reputation's care?
If we lead a life of pleasure,
"Tis no matter how or where.
With the ready trick and fable,
Round we wander all the day ;
And at night, in barn or stable,
Hug our doxies ca the hay.
Does the train-attended carriage
Through the country lighter rove ?
Does the sober bed of marriage
Witness brighter scenes of love ?
Life is all a variorum,
We regard not how it goes ;
Let them cant about decorum
Who have characters to lose.
Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets
Here's to all the wandering train !
Here's our ragged brats and callets !
One and all cry out Amen !
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
A fig for those by law protected I
Liberty's a glorious feast !
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILLIAM COWPER.
1731-1800.
FREEDOM.
WHOSE freedom is by sufferance, and at will
Of a superior, he is never free.
Who lives, and is not weary of a life
Exposed to manacles, deserves them well.
The state that strives for liberty, though foiled,
And forced to abandon what she bravely sought,
Deserves at least applause for her attempt,
And pity for her loss. But that's a cause
Not often unsuccessful ; power usurped
Is weakness when opposed ; conscious of wrong,
"Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight ;
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for ; spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts ;
The surest presage of the good they seek.
THE MORNING DREAM.
' TWAS in the glad season of spring,
Asleep at the dawn of the day,
I dreamed what I cannot but sing,
So pleasant it seemed as I lay.
io SONGS OF FREEDOM.
I dreamed that, on ocean afloat,
Far hence to the westward I sailed,
While the billows high lifted the boat,
And the fresh-blowing breeze never failed.
In the steerage a woman I saw ;
Such at least was the form that she wore.
Whose beauty impressed me with awe,
Ne'er taught me by woman before.
She sat, and a shield at her side
Shed light, like a sun on the waves,
And, smiling divinely, she cried
" I go to make freemen of slaves."
Then raising her voice to a strain
The sweetest that ear ever heard,
She sung of the slave's broken chain
Wherever her glory appeared.
Some clouds, which had over us hung,
Fled, chased by her melody clear,
And methought, while she liberty sung,
'Twas liberty only to hear.
Thus swiftly dividing the flood,
To a slave- cultured island we came }
Where a demon, her enemy, stood
Oppression his terrible name.
In his hand, as a sign of his sway,
A scourge hung with lashes he bore,
And stood looking out for his prey,
From Africa's sorrowful shore.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 1 1
But soon as approaching the land
That goddess-like woman he viewed,
The scourge he let fall from his hand,
With blood of his subjects imbrued.
I saw him both sicken and die,
And the moment the monster expired,
Heard shouts that ascended the sky,
From thousands with rapture inspired.
Awaking, how could I but muse
At what such a dream should betide ?
But soon my ear caught the glad news,
Which served my weak thought for a guide,
That Britannia, renowned o'er the waves
For the hatred she ever had shown
To the black-sceptred rulers of slaves,
Resolves to have none of her own.
12 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
GEORGE CRABBE.
17541832.
A SCENE FROM " THE VILLAGE."
BUT these are scenes where Nature's niggard hand
Gave a spare portion to the famish'd land ;
Hers is the fault, if here mankind complain
Of fruitless toil and labour spent in vain ;
But yet in other scenes more fair in view,
When Plenty smiles alas ! she smiles for few
And those who taste not, yet behold her store,
Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore
The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.
Or will you deem them amply paid in health,
Labour's fair child, that languishes with wealth ?
Go then ! and see them rising with the sun,
Through a long course of daily toil to run ;
See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat,
When the knees tremble and the temples beat ;
Behold them, leaning on their scythes, look o'er
The labour past, and toils to come explore ;
See them alternate suns and showers engage,
And hoard up aches and anguish for their age j
Through fens and marshy moors their steps pursue,
Where their warm pores imbibe the evening dew;
Then own that labour may as fatal be
To these thy slaves, as thine excess to thee.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 13
WILLIAM BLAKE.
17691827.
LONDON.
I WANDER through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow ;
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear :
How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.
But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
HOLY THURSDAY.
Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand ?
Is that trembling cry a song ?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty !
And their sun does never shine,
And their fields are black and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns :
It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babes should never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appal.
FROM "AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE."
NOUGHT can deform the human race
Like to the armourer's iron brace ;
The soldier armed with sword and gun
Palsied strikes the summer sun.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 15
When gold and gerns adorn the plough,
To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.
The beggar's rags fluttering in air
Do to rags the heavens tear ;
The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands,
Or, if protected from on high,
Shall that whole nation sell and buy ;
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate ;
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave Old England's winding-sheet ;
The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Shall dance before dead England's hearse.
1 6 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
17741843.
SONG FROM " WAT TYLER."
" WHEN Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman ? "
Wretched is the infant's lot,
Born within the straw-roof d cot ;
Be he generous, wise, or brave,
He must only be a slave.
Long, long labour, little rest,
Still to toil to be oppress'd ;
Drain'd by taxes of his store,
Punish'd next for being poor :
This is the poor wretch's lot,
Born within the straw-roof d cot.
While the peasant works, to sleep,
What the peasant sows, to reap,
On the couch of ease to lie,
Rioting in revelry ;
Be he villain, be he fool,
Still to hold despotic rule,
Trampling on his slaves with scorn !
This is to be nobly born.
" When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman ? "
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 17
THE SLAVE TRADE.
HIGH in the air exposed the Slave is hung,
To all the birds of heaven, their living food !
He groans not, though awaked by that fierce sun
New torturers live to drink their parent blood ;
He groans not, though the gorging vulture tear
The quivering fibre. Hither look, O ye
Who tore this man from peace and liberty !
Look hither, ye who weigh with politic care
The gain against the guilt ! Beyond the grave
There is another world ! . . . bear ye in mind,
Ere your decree proclaims to all mankind
The gain is worth the guilt, that there the Slave,
Before the Eternal, " thunder- tongued shall plead
Against the deep damnation of your deed."
1 8 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
17721834.
FRANCE : AN ODE.
ON THE FRENCH INVASION OF SWITZERLAND
IN 1797.
YE Clouds ! that far above me float and pause,
Whose pathless march no mortal may control !
Ye Ocean- Waves ! that, wheresoe'er ye roll,
Yield homage only to eternal laws !
Ye Woods ! that listen to the night-birds singing,
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,
Save when your own imperious branches swinging,
Have made a solemn music of the wind !
Where, like a man beloved of God,
Through glooms, which never woodman trod,
How oft, pursuing fancies holy,
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound,
Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,
By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound !
O ye loud Waves ! and O ye Forests high !
And O ye clouds that far above me soared !
Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky !
Yea, every thing that is and will be free !
Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be,
With what deep worship I have still adored
The spirit of divinest Liberty.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 19
When France in wrath her giant-limbs upreared,
And with that oath, which smote air, earth and sea,
Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free,
Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared !
With what a joy my lofty gratulation
Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band :
And when to whelm the disenchanted nation,
Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand,
The Monarchs marched in evil day,
And Britain joined the dire array ;
Though dear her shores and circling ocean,
Though many friendships, many youthful loves
Had swol'n the patriot emotion
And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves ;
Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat
To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance,
And shame too long delayed and vain retreat !
For ne'er, O Liberty ! with partial aim
I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame ;
But blessed the preans of delivered France,
And hung my head and wept at Britain's name.
"And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream
With that sweet music of deliverance strove !
Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove
A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream !
Ye storms, that round the dawning east assembled,
The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light ! "
And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled,
The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright ;
When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory
Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory ;
When, insupportably advancing,
20 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp ;
While timid looks of fury glancing,
Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp,
Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore ;
Then I reproached my fears that would not flee ;
"And soon," I said, "shall Wisdom teach her lore
In the low huts of them that toil and groan !
And, conquering by her happiness alone,
Shall France compel the nations to be free,
Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth their
own."
Forgive me, Freedom ! O forgive those dreams !
I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,
From bleak Helvetia's icy cavern sent
I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams !
Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished,
And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows
With bleeding wounds ; forgive me, that I cherished
One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes !
To scatter rage, and traitorous guilt,
Where Peace her jealous home had built ;
A patriot-race to disinherit
Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear ;
And with inexpiable spirit
To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer
O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,
And patriot only in pernicious toils,
Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind ?
To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,
Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey ;
To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils
From freemen torn ; to tempt and to betray ?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 21
The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game
They burst their manacles and wear the name
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain !
O Liberty ! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour ;
But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power.
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee)
Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions,
And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves,
Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,
The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves !
And there I felt thee 1 on that sea-cliff's verge,
Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above,
Had made one murmur with the distant surge !
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty ! my spirit felt thee there.
22 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
17701850.
THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUB-
JUGATION OF SWITZERLAND.
Two Voices are there ; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice :
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty !
There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee
Thou fought'st against him ; but hast vainly striven :
Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft :
Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left ;
For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be
That Mountain-floods should thunder as before,
And Ocean bellow irom his rocky shore,
And neither awful Voice be heard by thee 1
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 23
TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.
[Toussaint L'Ouverture was a negro who became governor of
St. Domingo under the French Republic. For resisting Napo-
leon's re-establishment of slavery in St. Domingo, he waa
arrested and sent to Paris, where he died in prison in 1803.]
TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men !
Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough
Within thy hearing, or thy head be now
Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den ;
O miserable Chieftain ! where and when
Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not ; do thou
Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow :
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,
Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth, and skies ;
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies ;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
HOFER.
[Andreas Hofer was the leader of the Tyrolese peasantry in
their resistance to Napoleon. He was betrayed and put to
death in 1810.]
OF mortal parents is the Hero born
By whom the dauntless Tyrolese are led ?
Or is it Tell's great Spirit, from the dead
Returned to animate an age forlorn ?
He comes like Phoebus through the gates of morn
When dreary darkness is discomfited ;
4
24 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Yet mark his modest state ! upon his head,
That simple crest, a heron's plume, is worn.
O Liberty, they stagger at the shock
From van to rear and with one mind would flee,
But half their host is buried : rock on rock
Descends : beneath this godlike Warrior, see !
Hills, torrents, woods, embodied to bemock
The Tyrant, and confound his cruelty.
TO THOMAS CLARKSON,
ON THE FINAL PASSING OF THE BILL FOR THE ABOLI-
TION OF THE SLAVE TRADE, MARCH 1 807.
CLARKSON ! it was an obstinate hill to climb :
How toilsome nay, how dire it was, by thee
Is known ; by none, perhaps, so feelingly :
But thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,
Didst first lead forth that enterprise sublime,
Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,
Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat,
First roused thee. O true yoke-fellow of Time,
Duty's intrepid liegeman, see, the palm
Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn !
The blood-stained Writing is for ever torn ;
And thou henceforth wilt have a good man's calm,
A great man's happiness ; thy zeal shall find
Repose at length, firm friend of human kind 1
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
1777 1S44.
SONG.
"MEN OF ENGLAND."
MEN of England ! who inherit
Rights that cost your sires their blood !
Men whose undegenerate spirit
Has been proved on field and flood :
By the foes you've fought uncounted,
By the glorious deeds ye've done,
Trophies captured breaches mounted,
Navies conquer'd kingdoms won !
Yet, remember, England gathers
Hence but fruitless wreaths of fame,
If the freedom of your fathers
Glow not in your hearts the same.
What are monuments of bravery,
Where no public virtues bloom ?
What avail in lands of slavery,
Trophied temples, arch, and tomb?
26 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Pageants ! Let the world revere us
For our people's rights and laws,
And the breasts of civic heroes
Bared in Freedom's holy cause.
Yours are Hampden's, Russell's glory,
Sidney's matchless shade is yours,
Martyrs in heroic story,
Worth a hundred Agincourts 1
We're the sons of sires that baffled
Crown'd and mitred tyranny ;
They defied the field and scaffold
For their birthrights so will we !
ODE TO THE GERMANS.
THE spirit of Britannia
Invokes, across the main,
Her sister Allemannia
To burst the Tyrant's chain :
By our kindred blood, she cries,
Rise, Allemannians, rise,
And hallow'd thrice the band
Of our kindred hearts shall be,
When your land shall be the land
Of the free of the free 1
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 27
With Freedom's lion-banner
Britannia rules the waves ;
Whilst your BROAD STONE OF HONOUR*
Is still the camp of slaves.
For shame, for glory's sake,
Wake, Allemannians, wake,
And thy tyrants now that whelm
Half the world shall quail and flee,
When your realm shall be the realm
Of the free of the free !
MARS owes to you his thunder t
That shakes the battle-field,
Yet to break your bonds asunder
No martial bolt has peal'd.
Shall the laurell'd land of art
Wear shackles on her heart ?
No ! the clock ye framed to tell
By its sound, the march of time ;
Let it clang oppression's knell
O'er your clime o'er your clime !
The press's magic letters,
That blessing ye brought forth,
Behold ! it lies in fetters
On the soil that gave it birth :
But the trumpet must be heard,
And the charger must be spurr'd ;
For your father Armin's Sprite
Calls down from heaven, that ye
Shall gird you for the fight,
And be free ! and be free !
* Ehrenbreitstein.
t Germany invented gunpowder, clock-makiny, and printing.
23 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THE POWER OF RUSSIA.
So all this gallant blood has gush'd in vain ;
And Poland, by the Northern Condor's beak
And talons torn, lies prostrated again !
O British patriots, that were wont to speak
Once loudly on this theme, now hush'd or meek !
O heartless men of Europe Goth and Gaul,
Cold, adder-deaf to Poland's dying shriek ;
That saw the world's last land of heroes fall
The brand of burning shame is on you all all all 1
But this is not the drama's closing act !
Its tragic curtain must uprise anew.
Nations, mute accessories to the fact !
That Upas-tree of power, whose fostering dew
Was Polish blood, has yet to cast o'er you
The lengthening shadow of its head elate
A deadly shadow, darkening Nature's hue.
To all that's hallow'd, righteous, pure and great,
Woe ! woe ! when they are reach'd by Russia's withering
hate.
Russia, that on his throne of adamant,
Consults what nation's breast shall next be gored :
He on Polonia's Golgotha will plant
His standard fresh ; and horde succeeding horde,
On patriot tombstones he will whet the sword,
For more stupendous slaughters of the free.
Then Europe's realms, when their best blood is pour'd,
Shall miss thee, Poland ! as they bend the knee,
All all iu grief, but none ia glory, likening thee.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 29
Why smote ye not the Giant whilst he reel'd ?
O fair occasion, gone for ever by !
To have lock'd his lances in their northern field,
Innocuous as the phantom chivalry
That flames and hurtles from yon boreal sky !
Now wave thy pennon, Russia, o'er the land
Once Poland ; build thy bristling castles high ;
Dig dungeons deep ; for Poland's wrested brand
Is now a weapon new to widen thy command.
,
Proud bird of old ! Mohammed's moon recoil'd
Before thy swoop : had we been timely bold,
That swoop, still free, had stunn'd the Russ, and foil'd
Earth's new oppressors, as it foil'd her old.
Now thy majestic eyes are shut and cold :
And colder still Polonia's children find
The sympathetic hands, that we outhold.
But, Poles, when we are gone, the world will mind
Ye bore the brunt of fate, and bled for humankind.
So hallow'dly have ye fulfill'd your part,
My pride repudiates ev'n the sigh that blends
With Poland's name name written on my heart.
My heroes, my grief-consecrated friends !
Your sorrow, in nobility, transcends
Your conqueror's joy: his cheek may blush ; but shame
Can tinge not yours, though exile's tear descends ;
Nor would ye change your conscience, cause, and name,
For his, with all his wealth, and all his felon fame.
Thee, Niemciewitz, whose song of stirring power
The Czar forbids to sound in Polish lands ;
Thee, Czartoryski, in thy banish'd bower,
The patricide, who in thy palace stands,
30 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
May envy; proudly may Polonia's bands
Throw down their swords at Europe's feet in scorn,
Saying " Russia from the metal of these brands
Shall forge the fetters of your sons unborn ;
Our setting star is your misfortunes' rising morn."
STANZAS
ON THE BATTLE OF NAVARINO, 1827.
HEARTS of oak that have bravely deliver'd the brave,
And uplifted old Greece from the brink of the grave,
'Twas the helpless to help, and the hopeless to save,
That your thunderbolts swept o'er the brine :
And as long as yon sun shall look down on the wave,
The light of your glory shall shine.
For the guerdon ye sought with your bloodshed and toil,
Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil ?
No ! your lofty emprise was to fetter and foil
The uprooter of Greece's domain !
When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil
Till her famish'd sank pale as the slain !
Yet, Navarin's heroes ! does Christendom breed
The base hearts that will question the fame of your deed!
Are they men? let ineffable scorn be their meed,
And oblivion shadow their graves !
Are they women ? to Turkish serails let them speed ;
And be mothers of Mussulman slaves.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 31
Abettors of massacre 1 dare ye deplore
That the death-shriek is silenced on Hellas's shore ?
That the mother aghast sees her offspring no more
By the hand of Infanticide grasp'd ?
And that stretch'd on yon billows distain'd by their gore
Missolonghi's assassins have gasp'd ?
Prouder scene never hallow'd war's pomp to the mind,
Than when Christendom's pennons woo'd social the wind,
And the flower of her brave for the combat combined,
Their watchword, humanity's vow ;
Not a sea-boy that fought in that cause, but mankind
Owes a garland to honour his brow I
32 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JAMES HOGG, The Ettrick Shepherd.
1772-1835.
THE HARP OF OSSIAN.
OLD harp of the Highlands, how long hast thou slumber'd
In cave of the correi, ungarnish'd, unstrung !
Thy minstrels no more with thy heroes are number'd,
Or deeds of thy heroes no more dare be sung.
A seer late heard, from thy cavern ascending,
A low-sounding chime, as of sorrow and dole ;
Some spirit unseen on the relic attending
Thus sung the last strain of the warrior's soul :
" My country, farewell ! for the days are expired
On which I could hallow the deeds of the free ;
Thy heroes have all to new honours aspired,
They fight, but they fight not for Scotia nor me.
All lost is our sway, and the name of our nation
Is sunk in the name of our old mortal foe ;
Then why should the lay of our last degradation
Be forced from the harp of old Ossian to flow ?
"My country, farewell 1 for the murmurs of sorrow
Alone the dark mountains of Scotia become ;
Her sons condescend from new models to borrow,
And voices of strangers prevail in the hum.
Before the smooth face of our Saxon invaders
Is quench'd the last ray in the eyes of the free ;
Then, oh ! let me rest in the caves of my fathers,
Forgetful of them as forgetful of thee 1 "
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 33
THOMAS MOORE.
17791852.
WHERE IS THE SLAVE?
WHERE is the slave, so lowly,
Condemn'd to chains unholy,
Who, could he burst
His bonds at first,
Would pine beneath them slowly?
What soul, whose wrongs degrade it,
Would wait till time decay'd it,
When thus its wing
At once may spring
To the throne of Him who made it ?
Farewell, Erin ! farewell, all
Who live to weep our fall !
Less dear the laurel growing
Alive, untouch'd, and blowing,
Than that whose braid
Is pluck'd to shade
The brows with victory glowing !
We tread the land that bore us,
Her green flag glitters o'er us,
34 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The friends we've tried
Are by our side,
And the foe we hate before us !
Farewell, Erin ! farewell, all
Who live to weep our fall !
OH, THE SIGHT ENTRANCING.
OH, the sight entrancing,
When morning's beam is glancing
O'er files array'd
With helm and blade,
And plumes, in the gay wind dancing !
When hearts are all high beating,
And the trumpet's voice repeating
That song, whose breath
May lead to death,
But never to retreating.
Yet, 'tis not helm or feather
For ask yon despot, whether
His plumed bands
Could bring such hands
And hearts as ours together.
Leave pomps to those who need 'em-
Give man but heart and freedom,
And proud he braves
The gaudiest slaves
That crawl where monarchs lead 'em.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 35
The sword may pierce the beaver,
Stone walls in time may sever,
'Tis mind alone,
Worth steel and stone,
That keeps man free for ever.
Oh, that sight entrancing,
When the morning's beam is glancing
O'er files array'd
With helm and blade,
And in Freedom's cause advancing.
FORGET NOT THE FIELD.
FORGET not the field where they perish'd,
The truest, the last of the brave,
All gone and the bright hope we cherish'd
Gone with them, and quench'd in their grave
Oh, could we from death but recover
Those hearts as they bounded before,
In the face of high heav'n to fight over
That combat for freedom once more ;
Could the chain for an instant be riven
Which Tyranny flung round us then,
No, 'tis not in Man, nor in Heaven,
To let Tyranny bind it again !
36 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
But 'tis past and, though blazon'd in story
The name of our Victor may be,
Accurst is the march of that glory
Which treads o'er the hearts of the free.
Far dearer the grave or the prison,
Illumed by one patriot name,
Than the trophies of all who have risen
On Liberty's ruins to fame.
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 37
EDWARD LYSAGHT.
17631810.
[An Irish barrister and song-writer. His poems were collected
and published in 1S11, after his death.]
IN PRAISE OF GRATTAN.
THE generous sons of Erin, in manly virtue bold,
With hearts and hands preparing our country to uphold ;
Tho' cruel knaves and bigot slaves disturbed our isle
some years,
Now hail the man who led the van of Irish Volunteers.
Just thirty years are ending since first his glorious aid,
Our sacred rights defending, struck shackles from our
trade ;
To serve us still, with might and skill, the vet'ran now
appears,
That gallant man who led the van of Irish Volunteers.
He sows no vile dissensions ; good-will to all he bears ;
He knows no vain pretensions, no paltry fears or cares ;
To Erin's and to Britain's sons his worth his name
endears ;
They love the man who led the van of Irish Volunteers.
38 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Oppos'd by hirelings sordid, he broke oppression's chain ;
On statute-books recorded his patriot acts remain ;
The equipoise his mind employs of Commons, King, and
Peers,
The upright man who led the van of Irish Volunteers.
A British constitution (to Erin ever true),
In spite of state pollution, he gained in 'Eighty-two ;
He watched it in its cradle, and bedew'd its hearse with
tears,
This gallant man who led the van of Irish Volunteers.
While other nations tremble, by proud oppressors gall'd,
On hustings we'll assemble, by Erin's welfare called ;
Our Grattan, there we'll meet him, and greet him with
three cheers,
The gallant man who led the van of Irish Volunteers.
SOA T GS OF FREEDOM. 39
LORD BYRON.
17881824.
SONNET ON CHILLON.
ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind !
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art !
For there thy habitation is the heart
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd
To fetters, and the damp vault's day less gloom -
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place,
And thy sad floor an altar ; for 'twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard ! May none those marks efface !
For they appeal from tyranny to God.
"CLTME OF THE UNFORGOTTEN BRAVE!"
CLIME of the unforgotten brave !
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave
5
40 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Shrine of the mighty ! can it be
That this is all remains of thee ?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave--
Say, is not this Thermopylae?
These waters blue that round you lave,
O servile offspring of the free
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this ?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis !
These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own ;
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires ;
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear,
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame.
They too will rather die than shame:
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page I
Attest it many a deathless age !
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land !
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die ! '
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 41
THE ISLES OF GREECE.
THE isles of Greece ! the isles of Greece !
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung !
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse ;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' " Islands of the Blest."
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea :
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might still be free ;
For, standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sat on the rocky brow
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations ; all were his !
He counted them at break of day,
And when the sun set where were they ?
42 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
And where are they? and where art thou,
My country ? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now
The heroic bosom beats no more !
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine ?
'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face ;
For what is left the poet here ?
For Greeks a blush for Greece a tear.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine !
Our virgins dance beneath the shade
I see their glorious black eyes shine ;
But, gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep:
There, swan-like, let me sing and die !
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 43
STANZAS.
CAN tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be,
And Freedom find no champion and no child
Such as Columbia saw arise when she
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled ?
Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild,
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar
Of cataracts, where nursing nature smiled
On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ?
But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,
And fatal have her Saturnalia been
To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime ;
Because the deadly days which we have seen,
And vile Ambition, that built up between
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,
And the base pageant last upon the scene,
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall
Which nips Life's tree, and dooms man's worst his
second fall.
Yet, Freedom ! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunderstorm against the wind ;
Thy tiumpet-voice, though broken now and dying,
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ;
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
But the sap lasts, and still the seed we find
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ;
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.
44 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JOHN KEATS,
17911821.
WRITTEN IN DISGUST OF VULGAR
SUPERSTITION.
THE church-bells toll a melancholy round,
Calling the people to some other prayers,
Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
More hearkening to the sermon's horrid sound,
Surely the mind of man is closely bound
In some black spell ; seeing that each one tears
Himself from fireside joys, and Lydian airs,
And converse high of those with glory crown'd.
Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp,
A chill as from a tomb, did I not know
That they are dying like an outburnt lamp ;
That 'tis their sighing, wailing ere they go
Into oblivion ; that fresh flowers will grow,
And many glories of immortal stamp.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 45
WRITTEN ON THE DAY THAT MR. LEIGH
HUNT LEFT PRISON.
WHAT though, for showing truth to flatter'd state,
Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he,
In his immortal spirit, been as free
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.
Minion of grandeur ! think you he did wait ?
Think you he nought but prison walls did see,
Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key?
Ah, no I far happier, nobler was his fate !
In Spenser's halls he stray'd, and bowers fair,
Culling enchanted flowers ; and he flew
With daring Milton through the fields of air :
To regions of his own his genius true
Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair
When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew ?
46 SONGS CF FREEDOM.
JAMES HENR Y LEIGH HUNT.
1784-1859.
POWER AND GENTLENESS.
I'VE thought at gentle and ungentle hour,
Of many an act and giant shape of power;
Of the old kings with high exacting looks,
Sceptred and globed; of eagles on their rocks,
With straining feet, and that fierce mouth and drear,
Answering the strain with downward drag austere ;
Of the rich-headed lion, whose huge frown
All his great nature, gathering, seems to crown ;
Of towers on hills, with foreheads out of sight
In clouds, or shown us by the thunder's light,
Or ghastly prison, that eternally
Holds its blind visage out to the lone sea;
And of all sunless, subterranean deeps
The creature makes, who listens while he sleeps,
Avarice ; and then of those old earthly cones,
That stride, they say, over heroic bones ;
And those stone heaps Egyptian, whose small doors
Look like low dens under precipitous shores ;
And him, great Memnon, that long sitting by
In seeming idleness, with stony eye,
Sang at the morning's touch, like poetry ;
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 4?
And then, of all the fierce and bitter fruit
Of the proud planting of a tyrannous foot,
Of bruised rights, and flourishing bad men,
And virtue wasting heavenwards from a den ;
Brute force and fury; and the devilish drouth
Of the fool cannon's ever-gaping mouth ;
And the bride-widowing sword ; and the harsh bray
The sneering trumpet sends across the fray;
And all which lights the people-thinning star,
That selfishness invokes, the horsed war,
Panting along with many a bloody mane.
I've thought of all this pride, and all this pain,
And all the insolent plenitudes of power,
And I declare, by this most quiet hour,
Which holds in different tasks by the firelight
Me and my friends here, this delightful night,
That Power itself has not one-half the might
Of Gentleness. 'Tis want to all true wealth ;
The uneasy madman's force, to the wise health ;
Blind downward beating, to the eyes that see;
Noise to persuasion, doubt to certainty ;
The consciousness of strength in enemies,
Who must be strain'd upon, or else they rise;
The battle to the moon, who all the while,
High out of hearing, passes with her smile;
The tempest, trampling in his scanty run,
To the whole globe, that basks about the sun ;
Or as all shrieks and clangs, with which a sphere,
Undone and fired, could rake the midnight ear,
Compared with that vast dumbness nature keeps
Throughout her starry deeps,
Most old, and mild, and awful, and unbroken,
Which tells a tale of peace beyond whate'er was spoken.
43 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
TO PERCY SHELLEY,
ON THE DEGRADING NOTIONS OF DEITY.
WHAT wonder, Percy, that with jealous rage
Men should defame the kindly and the wise,
When in the midst of the all-beauteous skies,
And all this lovely world that should engage
Their mutual search for the old golden age,
They seat a Phantom, swelled into grim size
Out of their own passions and bigotries,
And then, for fear, proclaim it meek and sage !
And this they call a light and a revealing !
Wise as the clown, who plodding home at night
In autumn, turns at call of fancied elf,
And sees upon the fog, with ghastly feeling,
A giant shadow in its imminent might,
Which his own lanthorn throws up from himself.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 49
PERCY B YSSHE SHELLE K
17921822.
THE HYMN OF THE LIBERATED NATIONS.
ELDEST of things, divine Equality !
Wisdom and Love are but the slaves of thee,
The Angels of thy sway, who pour around thee
Treasures from all the cells of human thought,
And from the Stars, and from the Ocean brought,
And the last living heart whose beatings bound thee.
The powerful and the wise had sought
Thy coming; thou in light descending
O'er the wide land which is thine own,
Like the spring whose breath is blending
All blasts of fragrance into one,
Comest upon the paths of men !
Earth bares her general bosom to thy ken,
And all her children here in glory meet
To feed upon thy smiles, and clasp thy sacred feet.
My brethren, we are free ! the plains and mountains,
The grey sea-shore, the forests, and the fountains,
Are haunts of happiest dwellers; man and woman,
Their common bondage burst, may freely borrow
From lawless love a solace for their sorrow !
For oft we still must weep, since we are human.
50 SOJVGS OF FREEDOM.
A stormy night's serenest morrow,
Whose showers are pity's gentle tears,
Whose clouds are smiles of those that die
Like infants, without hopes or fears,
And whose beams are joys that lie
In blended hearts, now holds dominion ;
The dawn of mind, which, upwards on a pinion
Borne, swift as sun-rise, far illumines space,
And clasps this barren world in its own bright
embrace !
My brethren, we are free ! the fruits are glowing
Beneath the stars, and the night-winds are flowing
O'er the ripe corn, the birds and beasts are dreaming-
Never again may blood of bird or beast
Stain with its venomous stream a human feast,
To the pure skies in accusation steaming;
Avenging poisons shall have ceased
To feed disease and fear and madness,
The dwellers of the earth and air
Shall throng around our steps in gladness,
Seeking their food or refuge there.
Our toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull,
To make this earth, our home, more beautiful,
And Science, and her sister Poesy,
Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free
Victory, Victory to the prostrate nations !
Bear witness, Night, and ye mute Constellations
Who gaze on us from your crystalline cars !
Thoughts have gone forth whose powers can sleep
no more !
Victory ! Victory ! Earth's remotest shore,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 51
Regions which groan beneath the Antarctic stars,
The green lands cradled in the roar
Of western waves, and wildernesses
Peopled and vast, which skirt the oceans
Where morning dyes her golden tresses,
Shall soon partake our high emotions :
Kings shall turn pale ! Almighty Fear,
The Fiend-God, when our charmed name he hear,
Shall fade like shadow from his thousand fanes,
While Truth with Joy enthroned o'er his lost empire
reigns !
THE TRUE FREEDOM.
(FROM "THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY.")
MEN of England, Heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty mother,
Hopes of her, and one another !
Rise, like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like r?ew,
Which in sleep had fall'n on you.
Ye are many, they are few.
What is Freedom ? Ye can tell
That which Slavery is too well,
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
52 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
'Tis to work, and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell :
So that ye for them are made,
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade;
With or without your own will, bent
To their defence and nourishment.
'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak :-
They are dying whilst I speak.
'Tis to hunger for such diet,
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye.
'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousand-fold
More than e'er his substance could
In the tyrannies of old.
This is Slavery savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den,
Would endure not as ye do :
But such ills they never knew.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 53
What art thou, Freedom? Oh ! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand, tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery.
Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.
For the labourer thou art bread
And a comely table spread,
From his daily labour come,
In a neat and happy home.
Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude :
No in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be,
As in England now we see.
SONG.
TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND.
MEN of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low ?
Wherefore weave with toil and care,
The rich robes your tyrants wear ?
54 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat nay, drink your blood
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil ?
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear ?
The seed ye sow, another reaps ;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears ;
The arms ye forge, another bears.
Sow seed, but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth, let no impostor heap;
Weave robes, let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear.
Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck, another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought ? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 55
With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.
ENGLAND IN 1819.
AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn mud from a muddy spring,
Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,
Religion Christless, Godless a book sealed;
A Senate Time's worst statute unrepealed,
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
THE ROYAL MASQUE.
(FROM "CHARLES THE FIRST.")
AY, there they are
Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,
Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,
On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows.
56 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,
Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart.
These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,
Who toil not, neither do they spin, unless
It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.
Here is the surfeit which to them who earn
The niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves
The tithe that will support them till they crawl
Back to its cold hard bosom. Here is health
Followed by grim disease, glory by shame,
Waste by lank famine, wealth by squalid want,
And England's sin by England's punishment.
And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,
Lo, giving substance to my words, behold
At once the sign and the thing signified
A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,
Horsed upon stumbling shapes, carted with dung,
Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins
And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral
Of this presentment, and bring up the rear
Of painted pomp with misery !
CHORUS IN "HELLAS."
IN the great morning of the world,
The spirit of God with might unfurled
The flag of Freedom over Chaos,
And all its banded anarchs fled,
Like vultures frighted from Imaus,
Before an earthquake's tread.
So from Time's tempestuous dawn
Freedom's splendour burst and shone :
Thermopylae and Marathon
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 57
Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted,
The springing Fire. The winged glory
On Philippi half-alighted,
Like an eagle on a promontory.
Its unwearied wings could fan
The quenchless ashes of Milan.
From age to age, from man to man
It lived ; and lit from land to land
Florence, Albion, Switzerland.
Then night fell ; and, as from night,
Re-assuming fiery flight,
From the West swift Freedom came,
Against the course of heaven and doom,
A second sun arrayed in flame,
To burn, to kindle, to illume.
From far Atlantis its young beams
Chased the shadows and the dreams.
France, with all her sanguine steams,
Hid, but quenched it not ; again
Through clouds its shafts of glory rain
From utmost Germany to Spain.
As an eagle fed with morning
Scorns the embattled tempest's warning,
When she seeks her aerie hanging
In the mountain-cedar's hair,
And her brood expect the clanging
Of her wings through the wild air,
Sick with famine ; Freedom, so
To what of Greece remaineth now
Returns ; her hoary ruins glow
Like orient mountains lost in day ;
Beneath the safety of her wings
Her renovated nurslings play,
And in the naked lightnings
Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes.
58 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Let Freedom leave, where'er she flies,
A Desert, or a Paradise ;
Let the beautiful and the brave
Share her glory, or a grave.
POLITICAL GREATNESS.
NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame ;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts :
History is but the shadow of their shame ;
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers, knit
By force or custom ? Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself ! in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
THE TRIUMPH OF PROMETHEUS.
THIS is the day, which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's des-
potism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the
deep;
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
SONGS Of FREEDOM. 59
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength ;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length,
These are the spells by which to re-assume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ;
To love, and bear ; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent ;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free ;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory !
60 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
FELICIA HEMANS.
17941835.
THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS
IN NEW ENGLAND.
THE breaking waves dash'd high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches toss'd.
And the heavy night hung dark,
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moor'd their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came ;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame ;
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear ;
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 61
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea ;
And the distant aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free.
The ocean eagle soar'd
From his nest by the white wave's foam ;
And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd
This was their welcome home !
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land ?
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth ;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar ?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the sports of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine.
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trode.
They have left unstain'd what there they found
Freedom to worship God.
62 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
17711854.
[A Sheffield journalist, of liberal and humanitarian views.
Was twice subjected to fine and imprisonment.]
THE PATRIOT'S PASS- WORD
ON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF ARNOLD DE WINKELRIED,
AT THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH.
" MAKE way for liberty ! " he cried ;
Made way for liberty, and died.
And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath ;
The fire of conflict burn'd within,
The battle trembled to begin ;
Yet while the Austrians held their ground
Point for assault was nowhere found ;
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed
The unbroken line of lances blazed ;
That line 'twere suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet :
How could they rest within their graves,
To leave their home the haunts of slaves ?
Would they not feel their children tread,
With clanking chains, above their head ?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 63
It did depend on one indeed ;
Behold him, Arnold Winkelried;
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.
Unmark'd he stood amidst the throng,
In rumination deep and long,
Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face,
And by the motion of his form
Anticipate the bursting storm,
And by the uplifting of his brow
Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.
But 'twas no sooner thought than done,
The field was in a moment won ;
" Make way for liberty ! " he cried,
Then ran, with arms extended wide,
As if his dearest friend to clasp ;
Ten spears he swept within his grasp ;
' Make way for liberty ! " he cried,
Their keen points cross'd from side to side ;
He bow'd amidst them like a tree,
And thus made way for liberty.
Swift to the breach his comrades fly,
' Make way for liberty," they cry,
And through the Austrian phalanx dart,
As rush'd the spears through Arnold's heart,
While, instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic seized them all ;
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.
Thus Switzerland again was free,
Thus death made way for liberty.
64 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILLIAM CULLEN BR YANT.
17941878.
THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.
O FREEDOM ! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,
Armed to the teeth, art thou ; one mailed hand
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword ; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred
With tokens of old wars ; thy massive limbs
Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee ;
They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.
Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep,
And his swart armourers, by a thousand fires,
Have forged thy chain ; yet, while he deems thee bound,
The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward ; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 65
Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years,
But he shall fade into a feebler age ;
Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His withered hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send
Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms,
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words
To charm thy ear ; while his sly imps, by stealth,
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread
That grow to fetters ; or bind down thy arms
With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh ! not yet
Mayst thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by
Thy sword ; nor yet, O Freedom ! close thy lids
In slumber ; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest
Awhile from tumults and the frauds of men,
These old and friendly solitudes invite
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees
Were young upon the unviolated earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood and rejoiced.
THE GREEK PARTISAN.
OUR free flag is dancing
In the free mountain air,
And burnished arms are glancing,
And warriors gathering there ;
66 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
And fearless is the little train
Whose gallant bosoms shield it ;
The blood that warms their hearts shall stain
That banner, ere they yield it.
Each dark eye is fixed on earth,
And brief each solemn greeting ;
There is no look nor sound of mirth,
Where thpse stern men are meeting.
They go to the slaughter,
To strike the sudden blow,
And pour on earth, like water,
The best blood of the foe ;
To rush on them from rock and height,
And clear the narrow valley,
Or fire their camp at dead of night,
And fly before they rally.
Chains are round our country pressed,
And cowards have betrayed her,
And we must make her bleeding breast
The grave of the invader.
Not till from her fetters
We raise up Greece again,
And write in bloody letters
That tyranny is slain ;
Oh, not till then the smile shall steal
Across those darkened faces,
Nor one of all those warriors feel
His children's dear embraces.
Reap we not the ripened wheat,
Till yonder hosts are flying,
And all their bravest, at our feet,
Like autumn sheaves are lying.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 67
WILLIAM TELL.
CHAINS may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,
Tell, of the iron heart ! they could not tame ;
For thou wert of the mountains ; they proclaim
The everlasting creed of liberty.
That creed is written on the untrampled snow,
Thundered by torrents which no power can hold,
Save that of God, when he sends forth his cold,
And breathed by winds that through the free heaven
blow.
Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around,
Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught,
And to thy brief captivity was brought
A vision of thy Switzerland unbound.
The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee
For the great work to set thy country free.
'SEVENTY-SIX.
THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung,
When, through the fresh awakened land,
The thrilling cry of freedom rung,
And to the work of warfare strung
The yeoman's iron hand !
Hills flung the cry to hills around,
And ocean-mart replied to mart,
And streams, whose springs were yet unfound,
Pealed far away the startling sound
Into the forest's heart.
68 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Then marched the brave from rocky steep,
From mountain river swift and cold ;
The borders of the stormy deep,
The vales where gathered waters sleep,
Sent up the strong and bold,
As if the very earth again
Grew quick with God's creating breath,
And, from the sods of grove and glen,
Rose ranks of lion-hearted men
To battle to the death.
The wife, whose babe first smiled that day,
The fair fond bride of yester eve,
And aged sire and matron grey,
Saw the loved warriors haste away,
And deemed it sin to grieve.
Already had the strife begun ;
Already blood on Concord's plain
Along the springing grass had run,
And blood had flowed at Lexington,
Like brooks of April rain.
That death-stain on the vernal sward
Hallowed to freedom all the shore ;
In fragments fell the yoke abhorred
The footsteps of a foreign lord
Profaned the soil no more.
SO1VGS OF FREEDOM. 69
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
18031882.
HYMN.
SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF CONCORD MONUMENT,
APRIL IQ, 1836.
[The Battle of Concord, April 19, 1775; marked the commence-
ment of the American War of Independence.]
BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept,
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deed redeem,
When like our sires our sons are gone.
Spirit ! who made those freemen dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid time and nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and Thee.
PART II.
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 73
EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
17811849.
[Author of the famous " Corn Law Rhymes. " Heworkedinthe
foundry as a child, and has been called the Poet of the Poor.]
THE REVOLUTION OF 1832.
SEE, the slow Angel writhes in dreams of pain !
His cheek indignant glows !
Like Stanedge, shaking thunder from his mane,
He starts from his repose.
Wide, wide his earthquake-voice is felt and heard ;
" Arise, ye brave and just ! "
The living sea is to its centre stirr'd
And, lo ! our foes are Dust !
The earth beneath the feet of millions quakes ;
The whirlwind cloud is riv'n ;
As midnight, smitten into lightning, wakes,
So waked the sword of Heav'n T
The angel drew not from its sheath that sword ;
He spake, and all was done !
Night fled away before the Almighty word,
And, lo ! the sun ! the sun !
74 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
BATTLE SONG.
DAY, like our souls, is fiercely dark ;
What then ? 'Tis day !
We sleep no more ; the cock crows hark !
To arms ! away !
They come ! they come ! the knell is rung
Of us or them ;
Wide o'er their march the pomp is flung
Of gold and gem.
What collar'd hound of lawless sway,
To famine dear
What pension'd slave of Attila
Leads in the rear ?
Come they from Scythian wilds afar,
Our blood to spill ?
Wear they the livery of the Czar ?
They do his will.
Nor tassell'd silk, nor epaulette,
Nor plume, nor torse
No splendour gilds, all sternly met,
Our foot and horse.
But, dark and still, we inly glow,
Condensed in ire !
Strike, tawdry slaves, and ye shall know
Our gloom is fire !
In vain your pomp, ye evil powers,
Insults the land ;
Wrongs, vengeance, and the cause are ours,
And God's right hand !
Madmen ! they trample into snakes
The wormy clod !
Like fire, beneath their feet awakes
The sword of God !
\
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 75
Behind, before, above, below,
They rouse the brave ;
Where'er they go they make a foe,
Or find a grave.
REFORM.
Too long endured, a power and will,
That would be nought, or first in ill,
Had wasted wealth, and palsied skill,
And fed on toil-worn poverty.
They call'd the poor a rope of sand ;
And lo ! no rich man's voice or hand
Was raised throughout the suffering land
Against their long iniquity.
They taught the self-robb'd sons of pride
To turn from toil and want aside,
And coin their hearts guilt-petrified,
To buy a smile from infamy.
The philter'd lion yawn'd in vain,
While o'er his eyes, and o'er his mane,
They hung a picklock, mask, and chain
True emblems of his dignity.
They murder'd Hope, they fetter'd Trade ;
The clouds to blood, the sun to shade,
And every good that God had made
They turned to bane and mockery.
76 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Love, plant of Heaven, and sent to show
One bliss divine to earth below,
Changed by their frown, bore crime and woe,
And breathed, for fragrance, pestilence.
With Freedom's plume, and Honour's gem,
They deck'd Abaddon's diadem,
And call'd on hell to shout for them
The holiest name of holiness.
They knew no interest but their own ;
They shook the State, they shook the Throne,
They shook the world ; and God alone
Seem'd safe in his omnipotence.
Did then his thunder rend the skies,
To bid the dead in soul arise ?
The dreadful glare of sullen eyes
Alone warn'd cruel tyranny.
A murmur from a trampled worm,
A whisper in the cloudless storm
Yet these, even these, announced Reform,
And Famine's scowl was prophecy !
Nor then remorse, nor tardy shame,
Nor love of praise, nor dread of blame,
But tongues of fire, and words of flame,
Roused Mammon from his apathy.
SOA'GS OF FREEDOM. 77
At length a MAN* to Mercia spoke !
From smitten hearts the lightning broke ;
The slow invincible awoke ;
And England's frown was victory!
O years of crime ! The great and true
The nobly wise are still the few,
Who bid Truth grow where Falsehood grew,
And plant it for eternity.
SONG.
LET idlers despair ! there is hope for the wise
Who rely on their own hearts and hands ;
And we read in their souls, by the flash of their eyes,
That our land is the noblest of lands.
Let knaves fear for England, whose thoughts wear a
mask,
While a war on our trenchers they wage ;
Free trade and no favour is all that we ask !
Fair play, and the world for a stage !
Secure in their baseness, the lofty and bold
Look down on their victims beneath ;
Like snow on a skylight, exalted and cold,
They shine o'er the shadow of death ;
In the warm sun of knowledge that kindles our blood,
And fills our cheer'd spirits with day,
Their splendour, condemn'd by the brave and the good,
Like a palace of ice melts away.
* Henry Brougham.
78 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Our compass, which married the East to the West,
Our press, which makes many minds one,
Our steam-sincw'd giant that toils without rest,
Proclaim that our perils are gone.
We want but the right, which the God of the right
Denies not to birds and to bees ;
The charter of Nature ! that bids the wing'd light
Fly chainless as winds o'er the seas.
THE PEOPLE'S ANTHEM.
WHEN wilt thou save the people ?
O God of mercy ! when ?
Not kings and lords, but nations !
Not thrones and crowns, but men !
Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they !
Let them not pass, like weeds, away !
Their heritage a sunless day !
God save the people
Shall crime bring crime for ever,
Strength aiding still the strong ?
Is it thy will, O Father !
That man shall toil for wrong?
" No ! " say thy mountains ; " No ! " thy skies ;
" Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
And songs be heard instead of sighs."
God save the people !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 79
When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy ! when ?
The people, Lord ! the people !
Not thrones and crowns, but men !
God save the people ! thine they are ;
Thy children, as thy angels fair :
Save them from bondage and despair !
God save the people !
8o SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ANONYMOUS.
*
rT ue following "Union Hymn," wrongly attributed to the
Hugh Button, is said to have been "familiar to every
in the land." It was sung at an immense mass meeting
Birmingham in 1832.]
Lo ! we answer ! see, we come
Quick at Freedom's holy call.
We come, we come, we come, we come,
To do the glorious work of all ;
And hark ! we raise from sea to sea
The sacred watchword, Liberty !
God is our guide ! from field, from wave,
From plough, from anvil, and from loom
We come, our country's rights to save
And speak a tyrant faction's doom.
And hark ! we raise from sea to sea
The sacred watchword, Liberty !
God is our guide ! no swords we draw,
We kindle not war's battle-fires ;
By union, justice, reason, law,
We claim the birthright of our sires.
We raise the watchword, Liberty
We will, we will, we will be free !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 81
MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER.
17801835.
[Noted for his philanthropic interest on behalf of the agricul-
tural and manufacturing poor. M.P. for Aldborough, 1830.]
THE FACTORY GIRL'S LAST DAY.
'TWAS on a winter's morning,
The weather wet and wild,
Three hours before the dawning
The father roused his child ;
Her daily morsel bringing,
The darksome room he paced,
And cried, " The bell is ringing,
My hapless darling, haste ! "
" Father, I'm up, but weary,
I scarce can reach the door,
And long the way and dreary,
O carry me once more !
To help us we've no mother ;
And you have no employ;
They killed my little brother,-
Like him I'll work and die ! "
Her wasted form seemed nothing,
The load was at his heart ;
The sufferer he kept soothing
Till at the mill they part.
82 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The overlooker met her,
As to her frame she crept,
And with his thong he beat her,
And cursed her as she wept.
Alas ! what hours of horror
Made up her latest day ;
In toil, and pain, and sorrow,
They slowly passed away :
It seemed, as she grew weaker,
The threads the oftener broke,
The rapid wheels ran quicker,
And heavier fell the stroke.
The sun had long descended,
But night brought no repose ;
Her day began and ended
As cruel tyrants chose.
At length a little neighbour
Her halfpenny she paid
To take her last hour's labour,
While by her frame she laid.
At last, the engine ceasing,
The captives homeward rushed ;
She thought her strength increasing-
'Twas hope her spirits flushed :
She left, but oft she tarried,
She fell and rose no more,
Till, by her comrades carried,
She reached her father's door.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 83
All night, with tortured feeling, _
He watched his speechless child ;
While, close beside her kneeling,
She knew him not, nor smiled.
Again the factory's ringing
Her last perceptions tried ;
When, from her straw-bed springing,
" Tis time ! " she shrieked, and died 1
That night a chariot passed her,
While on the ground she lay ;
The daughters of her master
An evening visit pay :
Their tender hearts were sighing
As negro wrongs were told,
While the white slave lay dying,
Who earned their father's gold !
84 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ROBERT NICOLL.
18141837.
[A young Scotch poet and enthusiast; editor of the Leeds
Times. His "Poeras and Lyrics" were published in 1835.]
THE BATTLE-WORD.
IN Scotland's cause, for Scotland's gude,
We'll blithely shed our dearest bluid,
And stand or fa' as freemen should,
As we hae done before.
Now proudly come the foemen on,
Against auld Scotland's mountain throne ;
The sun its last on them hath shone,
Claymore!
We're freemen, and maun ne'er be slaves
We fight for heather-cover'd graves
To tell yon comin' warrior-waves
That men our mothers bore ;
For maidens loved, for parents dear,
Fourscore would battle were it here,
An' stand like us, nor think o' fear
Claymore!
They break they halt they form again
We well have borne the battle-strain:
The grass that clothes the reeking plain
Is wet wi' stranger gore.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 85
Remember ! for our native soil,
That a' we love at hame may smile;
Nerve ilka arm for bluidy toil
Claymore !
We've conquered ! wives and bairns a',
We've conquered ! baith for grit and sma',
For maid and matron, puir and braw
The bluidy darg is o'er.
Our fathers' weapon and our ain,
Thou'lt be our sons' we brawly ken
By foughten fields, by foemen slain,
Claymore I
THE PUIR FOLK.
SOME grow fu' proud o'er bags o' gowd,
And some are proud o' learning :
An honest poor man's worthy name
I take delight in earning.
Slaves needna try to run us down
To knaves we're unco dour folk ;
We're aften wrang'd, but, deil may care
We're honest folk, though puir folk !
Wi' Wallace wight we fought fu' weel,
When lairds and lords were jinking;
They knelt before the tyrant loun
We brak his crown I'm thinking.
86 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The muckle men he bought wi' gowd
Syne he began to jeer folk;
But neither swords, nor gowd, nor guile,
Could turn the sturdy puir folk !
When auld King Charlie tried to bind
Wi' aim saul and conscience,
In virtue o' his right divine,
And ither daft -like nonsense
Wha raised at Marston such a stour,
And made the tyrants fear folk ?
Wha prayed and fought wi' Pym and Noll ?-
The trusty, truthfu' puir folk !
Wha ance upon auld Scotland's hills
Were hunted like the paitrick,
And hack'd wi' swords, and shot wi' guns,
Fra' Tummel's bank to Ettrick,
Because they wouldna' let the priest
About their conscience steer folk ?
The lairds were bloodhounds to the clan
The Martyrs were the puir folk !
When Boston boys at Bunker's Hill
Gart Slavery's minions falter ;
While ilka hearth in a' the bay
Was made fair Freedom's altar ;
Wha fought the fight, and gained the day ?
Gae wa', ye knaves ! 'twas our folk :
The beaten great men served a king
The victors a' were puir folk !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 87
We saw the corn and baud the plough,
We a' work for our living ;
We gather nought but what we've sawn
A' else we reckon thieving :
And for the loun wha fears to say
He comes o' lowly, sma' folk,
A wizen'd soul the creature has
Disown him will the puir folk !
Great sirs, and mighty men o' earth,
Ye aften sair misca' us ;
And hunger, cauld, and poverty
Come after ye to thraw us :
Yet up our hearts we strive to heeze,
In spite o' you and your folk ;
But mind, enough's as gude's a feast,
Although we be but puir folk.
We thank the Powers for gude and ill,
As grateful folk should do, man ;
But maist o' a' because our sires
Were tailors, smiths, and ploughmen.
Good men they were, as staunch as steel ;
They didna wrack and screw folk
Wi' empty pouches, honest hearts
Thank God, we come o' puir folk !
8
88 SONGS OF FREEDOM,
WE ARE FREE.
LIKE lightning's flash
Upon the foe
We burst, and laid
Their glories low !
Like mountain-floods
We on them came
Like withering blast
Of scorching flame,
Like hurricane
Upon the sea
Shout, shout again,
Shout, We are Freel
We struck for God
We struck for life
We struck for sire
We struck for wife
We struck for home
We struck for all
That man doth lose
By bearing thrall !
We struck 'gainst chains,
For liberty !
Now, for our pains,
Shout, We are Free!
Give to the slain
A sigh a tear;
A curse to those
Who spoke of fear
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 89
Then eat your bread
In peace ; for now
The tyrant's pride
Is lying low !
His strength is broken
His minions flee
The Voice hath spoken
Shout, We are Freel
90 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX.
17861864.
[Unitarian preacher. M. P. for Oldham, 1847.]
PRAISE TO THE HEROES.
PRAISE to the heroes who struck for the right,
When freedom and truth were defended in fight :
Of blood-shedding hirelings the deeds are abhorred,
But the patriot smiles, and we honour his sword.
Praise to the martyrs who died for the right,
Nor ever bowed down at the bidding of might :
Their ashes were cast all abroad on the wind,
But more widely the blessings they won for mankind.
Praise to the sages, the teachers of right,
Whose voice in the darkness said " Let there be light."
The sophist may gain the renown of an hour ;
But wisdom is glory, while knowledge is power.
Heroes, martyrs, and sages, true prophets of right !
They foresaw, and they made man's futurity bright.
Their fame will ascend till the world sink in flames :
Be their spirit in all who sing praise to their names.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 91
"THE BARONS BOLD."
THE Barons bold on Runnymede
By Union won their charter;
True men were they, prepared to bleed,
But not their rights to barter :
And they swore that England's laws
Were above a Tyrant's word ;
And they proved that freedom's cause
Was above a Tyrant's sword :
Then honour we
The memory
Of those Barons brave united ;
And like their band,
Join hand to hand,
Our wrongs shall soon be righted.
The Commons brave, in Charles's time,
By Union made the Crown fall,
And showed the world how Royal crime
vShould lead to Royal downfall :
And they swore that Rights and Laws
Were above a Monarch's word ;
And they raised the Nation's cause
Above the Monarch's sword :
Then honour we
The memory
Of those Commons brave, united ;
And like their band,
Join hand to hand,
Our wrongs shall soon be righted.
92 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The People firm, from Court and Peers,
By Union won Reform, sirs,
And, Union safe, the Nation steers
Through sunshine and through storm, sirs :
And we swear that equal laws
Shall prevail o'er lordlings' words,
And can prove that Freedom's cause
Is too strong for hireling swords :
Then honour we
The victory
Of the people brave, united \
Let all our bands
Join hearts and hands,
Our wrongs shall all be righted.
1832.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 93
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
18021876,
HYMN OF THE POLISH EXILES.
GOD ! scorched by battle-fires we stand
Before thee on thy throne of snows ;
But, Father, in this silent land,
We seek no refuge nor repose :
We ask, and shall not ask in vain,
" Give us our heritage again ! "
Thy winds are ice-bound in the sea ;
Thine eagle cowers till storms are past ;
Lord ! when those moaning winds are free,
When eagles mount upon the blast,
O breathe upon our icy chain,
And float our Poland's flag again !
'Twas for thy cause we once were strong ;
Thou wilt not doom that cause to death !
O God, our struggle has been long ;
Thou wilt not quench our glimmering faith
Thou hear'st the murmurs of our pain,
" Give us our heritage again 1 "
94 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THOMAS WADE.
1S05 1875.
[Journalist, dramatist, and poet, holding the faith of the
advanced Liberal school. His Mundi et Cordis Carmina, " Poems
and Sonnets," appeared in 1835, containing the " Reform Bill
Hymns."]
A SONG OF THE PEOPLE.
THE hoary dotard, Aristocracy,
Shakes in his crumbling palace-halls ; for hark !
On the broad ocean of Democracy
Floats Liberty, prepared to disembark
On her predestin'd strand,
This English land !
In glory, o'er a world of tribulation,
She raiseth her bright banner as the Sun
O'er clouds and storms ascendeth burningly
And, with a loud and multitudinous voice,
The millions of the congregated Nation
(Myriad-lipp'd ; but its great hearts as one !)
Rejoice !
They fear ! the Few who on our lives have fed
The Tramplers on the Many turn in dread !
And we, the mighty People, to regain
Our stolen birthright have not wrought in vain
We live ! we live, again !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 95
Still bloodless be the sword we draw,
To make our lawful wills the law
O'er dull Convention, Tyranny, and Wrong,
Made by the Ignorance of Ages strong !
No gory weapon will we deign to wield,
Drenching with brother-blood our brother's field ;
Dungeons and chains, death-blocks and torturings
Shall vanish from the world with Slaves and Kings :
We fight to conquer and convert our Foes,
Not use them bloodily ! From Freedom flows
Nor human tears, nor human gore :
With spiritual weapons for things spiritual
The living Many battle, as of yore
Did here and there some solitary Sage,
The one soul-beacon of his mindless Age !
For Knowledge now on myriad wings
From the Press, seif-plumed, springs
And floats around us all !
We have not striven in vain
Against the tyrant-chain !
They fear ! the Few who on our lives have fed
The Tramplers on the Many turn in dread !
We live ! we live, again !
THE NEWSPAPER.
IT goeth forth, an instrument of power,
Ruling and ruled by great society;
Noting the human business of the hour,
With retrospection far, and prophecy;
Showing the world the world, and to the tide
Of Time its own vast flowings self-supplied !
96 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
A wondrous and a mighty Thing it is,
Speaking to distant millions as to near ;
Rousing all passions and all sympathies,
And forcing the earth's space to disappear
By its connecting course o'er all the lands,
Which makes the globe's antipodes shake hands !
Before its all-detecting, all-proclaiming,
And all-truth-telling voice, the Tyrant's throne
And the bald Bigot's altar, heavenward flaming
With fires derived from hell, quiver and groan ;
For it is clothed in liberty and light,
And casts destroying sun-shafts through their night !
Hail it, ye stirring Millions, as your Saver
From the old law of things, that kept ye under
The foot-tread of the Few as the way-paver
To your redemption-goal ! And, of its thunder
Ye who sit throned the Joves invisible,
Use the mighty weapon well !
Hide it not in cloudy sphere
Of pale apathy or fear ;
But ever let its radiant bolts be hurl'd
Against the giant Ills that still bestride the World !
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 97
T. NOEL.
[" Ryrues and Roundelayes," 1S41.]
THE PAUPER'S DRIVE.
THERE'S a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot ;
To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot ;
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs,
And hark to the dirge that the sad driver sings :
" Rattle his bones over the stones;
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns ! "
Oh, where are the mourners? alas ! there are none ;
He has left not a gap in the world now he's gone,
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man
To the grave with his carcase as fast as you can.
" Rattle his bones over the stones ;
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns ! "
What a jolting and creaking, and splashing and din ;
The whip how it cracks ! and the wheels how they spin !
How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled !
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world.
" Rattle his bones over the stones ;
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns ! "
98 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Poor pauper defunct, he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach,
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last ;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast.
" Rattle his bones over the stones ;
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns ! "
You bumpkin, who stare at your brother conveyed ;
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid,
And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low,
You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go.
" Rattle his bones over the stones ;
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns ! "
But a truce to this strain for my soul it is sad,
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend.
Bear softly his bones over the stones,
Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet owns.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 99
EBENEZER JONES.
18201860.
[One of the most talented of the many writers in sympathy
with the Chartist movement. "Studies of Sensation and
Event," published 1843.]
A COMING CRY.
THE few to whom the law hath given the earth God gives
to all
Do tell us that for them alone its fruits increase and fall ;
They tell us that by labour we may earn our daily bread,
But they take the labour for their engines that work on
unfed ;
And so we starve ; and now the few have publish'd a.
decree
Starve on, or eat in workhouses the crumbs of charity ;
Perhaps it's better than starvation, once we'll pray, and
then
We'll all go building workhouses, million, million men !
We'll all go building workhouses, million, million hands,
So jointed wondrously by God, to work love's wise com-
mands ;
We'll all go building workhouses, million, million minds,
By great Gnd charter'd to condemn whatever harms or
binds ;
TOO SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The God-given mind shall image, the God-given hand
shall build
The prisons for God's children, by the earth-lords will'd ;
Perhaps it's better than starvation, once we'll pray, and
then
We'll all go building workhouses, million, million men.
What'll we do with the workhouses? million, million
men !
Shall we all lie down and madden, each in his lonely
den?
What ! we whose sires made Cressy ! we, men of Nelson's
mould !
We, of the Russells' country, God's Englishmen the
bold!
Will we, at earth's lords' bidding, build ourselves dis-
honour'd graves ?
Will we who've made this England, endure to be its
slaves ?
Thrones totter before the answer ! once we'll pray, and
then
We'll all go building workhouses, million, million men.
SONG OF THE KINGS OF GOLD.
OURS all are marble halls,
Amid untrodden groves,
Where music ever calls,
Where faintest perfume roves ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 101
And thousands toiling moan,
That gorgeous robes may fold
The haughty forms alone
Of us the Kings of Gold.
CHORUS
We cannot count our slaves,
Nothing bounds our sway,
Our will destroys and saves,
We let, we create, we slay.
Ha ! ha ! who are Gods ?
Purple, and crimson, and blue,
Jewels, and silk, and pearl,
All splendours of form and hue,
Our charm'd existence furl ;
When dared shadow dim
The glow in our wine-cups roll'd ?
When droop'd the banquet-hymn
Raised for the Kings of Gold ?
The earth, the earth, is ours !
Its corn, its fruits, its wine,
Its sun, its rain, its flowers,
Ours, all, all ! cannot shine
One sunlight ray but where
Our mighty titles hold ;
Wherever life is, there
Possess the Kings of Gold.
102 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
And all on earth that lives,
Woman, and man, and child,
Us trembling homage gives ;
Aye trampled, sport-defiled,
None dareth raise one frown,
Or slightest questioning hold ;
Our scorn but strikes them down
To adore the Kings of Gold.
On beds of azure down,
In halls of torturing light,
Our poison'd harlots moan,
And burning toss in sight ;
They are ours for us they burn ;
They are ours, to reject, to hold ;
We taste we exalt we spurn
For we are the Kings of Gold.
The father writhes a smile,
As we seize his red-lipp'd girl,
His white-loin'd wife ; ay, whi!e
Fierce millions burn, to hurl
Rocks on our regal brows,
Knives in our hearts to hold
They pale, prepare them bows
At the step of the Kings of Gold.
In a glorious sea of hate,
Eternal rocks we stand ;
Our joy is our lonely state,
And our trust our own right hand ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 103
We frown, and nations shrink;
They curse, but our swords are old ;
And the wine of their rage deep drink
The dauntless Kings of Gold.
CHORUS
We cannot count our slaves,
Nothing bounds our sway,
Our will destroys and saves,
We let, we create, we slay.
Ha ! ha! who are Gods?
A SLAVE'S TRIUMPH.
"DEATH to the aristocrats ! " the people roar'd,
Death to my master each man fiercely thought,
As through the capital of France they pour'd,
A revolution's mob, with madness fraught :
Before a stately building paused one band ;
Awhile its leader bade them there abide,
And where his Lord and his Lord's kindred stand,
He sprang and cried
" Where is your scorn ! where is the insolent eye,
Narrowing its lids to look at me ; where, where,
The averted face that seemed wrench'd awry,
Sick at my presence, that we yet did bear,
Even to enslave me ! Seem thus sick once more !
With narrowing eyes now speak me your decree !
For beneath your palace human tigers roar !
I hold the key 1
9
104 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
" You merciless wretches ! what ! you kneel, you whine,
To smile at me you dare ! One smile again,
And the mob is rending ye -. rise, masters mine !
I'll give you a boon to see your old disdain ;
To hear your words slow, insolent, as of yore,
Chuckle at the shame they knew they burn'd through
me ;
For beneath your palace human tigers roar !
I hold the key !
" God ! how they hate me ! this, this, this, is life !
Aha ! white fiends ! I am merciless ! one hour
Ago, and ye might have slain me with the knife,
When 'neath your whips my flesh did shrink and cower!
Had ye but known, when to slay me ye forbore,
How I drank your blood, while I for life did plea !
For the tigers are starved that underneath you roar !
And I hold the key !
" Can you not tell these avengers of my shame
How I loathe, despise them ; ye were saved, saved,
saved !
The beasts have lick'd your feet, and again would tame!
Aha ! they will sword you when this hand is waved !
They will wrench your hearts out, stumble in your gore !
Can you not speak them ? beasts they are like ye !
But mine, mine, mine ! For you they rage and roar !
I hold the key!"
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 105
THE HON. GEO. SYDNEY SMYTHE.
1818 1S57.
[Author of " Historic Fancies," and other works. Afterward*
Viscount Strangford.]
THE JACOBIN OF PARIS.
Ho, St. Antoine ! Ho, St. Antoine, thou quarter of the
poor,
Arise with all thy households, and pour them from thy
door ;
Rouse thy attics and thy garrets, rouse cellar, cell, and
cave,
Rouse over-worked and over-taxed the starving and
the slave.
"Canaille" ay, we remember it, that word of dainty
scorn,
They flung us from the chariots, the high and haughty
born.
Canaille canaille ay, here we throng, and we will
show to-night,
How ungloved hand, with pike and brand, can help
itself to right.
io6 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
It was a July evening, and the summer moon shone
fair,
When first the people rose, in the grandeur of despair.
But not for greed, or gain, or gold, to plunder or to
steal,
We spared the gorgeous Tuilleries, we levelled the
Bastille.
A little year, we met once more, yea " Canaille " met
that day,
In the very heart of his Versailles, to beard the man
Capet ;
And we brought him back to Paris, in a measured train
and slow,
And we shouted to his face for Barnave and Mirabeau.
Ho, Conde, wert thou coming, with thy truant Chevaliers,
Did'st thou swear they should avenge the Austrian
wanton's tears ?
Ho, Artois, art thou arming, for England's ceaseless pay,
Thy Brunswickers, and Hessians, and Brigands of
Vendee ?
Come, then, with every hireling, Sclave, Croat, and
Cossack,
We dare your war, beware of ours we fling you
freedom back.
What, Tyrants, did you menace us, now tremble for
your own !
You have heard the glorious tidings of Valmy and
Argonne !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 107
How like the Greek of olden time, who in the self-same
hour,
At Platcea, and at Mycale, twice crushed the invader's
power ;
So we had each our victory, and each our double fray,
Dumouricz with the stranger, and we at the Abbaye.
Oh, but it was a glorious hour, that ne'er again may be ;
It was a night of fierce delight we never more shall see.
That blood-stained floor, that foes' red gore, the rich and
ruddy wine,
And the strong sense, all felt within, our work it was
divine !
They knew that men were brothers, but in their lust they
trod
On the lessons of their priests, and the warnings of their
God.
They knew that men were brothers, but they heeded not
the Lord,
So we taught them the great Truth anew, with fire and
with sword.
Oh, but it was a glorious hour, that vengeance that we
wreaked,
When the Mighty knelt for pardon, and the Great in
anguish shrieked !
But we jeered them for their little hearts, and mocked
their selfish fears,
For we thought the while of all their crimes, of twice
five hundred years.
io8 SONGS OF FREEDOM,
He used to laugh at justice, that gay Aristocrat,
He used to scoff at mercy, but he knelt to us for that !
But with untiring hate we struck, and as our victim fell,
He heard to hear them echoed soon the cries and
jests of Hell.
Ho, St. Antoine, arouse thee now, Ho, brave Septem-
brists all,
The Tocsin rings, as then it rung ! Arise unto its call !
For the True Friend of the people, and our own Pere
Duchene
Have told us, they have need of the people's arms again.
For the Gironde hath turned traitor, and the Moderates
have sold
The hard-earned rights of Hoche's fights, for promise of
Pitt's gold.
And the Pedant, and the Upstart, as Upstart only can,
Have dared deride, in lettered pride, the plain and
working man.
What, We, who burst the bondage our fathers bore so
long,
That Oppression had seemed sacred in its venerable
wrong,
What, We, who have outspoken, and the whole world
obeyed,
With its Princes, and its Monarchs, on their high thrones
afraid,
W 7 hat, We, who broke that mighty yoke, shall we quail
before Brissot ?
And shall we bow to him as lowly, as he would have us
bow?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 109
And shall we learn the Courtier's lisp, and shall we
cringe and sue
To the lily hand of fair Roland, like love-sick Barbaroux ?
No, by Great Heaven, we have not riven the mighty
chains of old,
The State-craft, and the Priestcraft, and the Grandeur
and the Gold,
To be ground down by Doctrines to be crushed by
Forms and Schools,
To starve upon their Corn Laws, but to live upon their
rules.
No, if we must have leaders, they like ourselves shall be,
Who have struggled and have conquered with single
hearts and free :
Who do not ape the Noble, nor affect the Noble's air,
With Tallien for a Richelieu, and Louvet for Voltaire.
No, we will have such leaders as the Roman Tribunes
were,
Couthon and young St. Just and simple Robespierre ;
Now glory to their garrets, it is nobler far to own,
Than the fair half-hundred palaces and the Carlovingian
throne.
And glory to the thousand proofs that day by day they
give
Of some great end to which they tend, those solemn lives
they live.
When the Monarch and the Anarch alike shall pass away,
And morn shall break, and man awake, in the light of a
fairer day.
1 10 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WA THEN MARK WILKS CALL,
Died 1890.
[Author of "Reverberations," 1842.]
KOSSUTH AND THE HUNGARIANS.
KOSSUTH and the brave men of Hungary !
Champions ye are of freedom and of truth ;
Like children of the world in her fresh youth,
Stand forth, stand forth, for all the earth to see !
A very ancient and a noble cause
Invites you, calls you, clothes you with new might.
Oh, doubly weaponed are you with the right,
Supported by the old majestic laws.
Now for all noble growth of mind and heart
The nations look to you ; be strong and free,
And, with a fame that never shall depart,
Stand forth, stand forth, for all the world to see,
O champions both of temple and of mart,
Kossuth and the brave men of Hungary !
MAZZINI.
MAZZINI ! like to some majestic tower,
On which the everlasting stars do sit,
While the unconquered heaven bends over it,
And ocean shouts below with giant power,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 1 1 1
Thou standest, while the people gather fast,
Thrilled by thy words that strengthen and inspire,
And burning like a forest all on fire,
That flares and shakes beneath the thundering blast.
Silent and strong thou standest evermore,
Worthy of honour in all time to come,
Whether thou teach a wise and noble lore
To wandering children in an exile's home,
Or clothe with fear and splendour, as of yore,
The City of the World, the people's Rome.
PROTECTION.
THE darkness and the dread and the despair
Lie thick and heavy on the human heart,
Which nurses fear, and hopes like fears, apart,
Half-stifled, like caged birds, for want of air ;
Or if a brother acts a brother's part,
The converse still is of low-thoughted care.
Children that should in the green meadows live,
And prattle to their mothers, meek and fair,
Of cowslips, daisies, birds, and merry play,
Taking ten kisses for each kiss they give,
Talk over common wants of every day,
Or ask the old question Is there any bread?
While, with the murmur'd curse or silence dread,
Young fathers stand around with hair grief-grey.
ii2 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THE ENFRANCHISED LABOURER.
BUT Labour now is free, and there is hope !
Brave men stand forth, and lo ! a light sublime,
Like Morning, breaks along the sky of Time,
And a new Sun ascends our heaven's pale cope.
Joy to old England ! Joy with Freedom comes :
Our cottage homes are beautiful again,
Dear nature's gifts the kingly peasant sums,
And sings and worships in her ancient fane.
Joy to the nations ! Every country bears
All fruits, all flowers. Joy ! there is no more sea,
Our spears are pruning-hooks, our swords are shares,
Men form one great and tranquil brotherhood,
Are brave and gentle, courteous, wise and free,
And God looks down and sees that it is good.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 113
THOMAS COOPER.
1805-1892.
[Chartist poet. His "Purgatory of Suicides, a Prison-
Rhyme," was written during a two years' imprisonment in
Stafford gaol for a speech to the colliers in 1842.]
HAIL, HOLIEST LIBERTY.
HAIL, holiest Liberty ! who hast thy shrine
Deep in the faithful patriot's soul recess'd,
Diffusing from thy visage light divine
That glads the dungeon's gloom and drear unrest,
Until it beams with visions ever blest
Of Right triumphant over hoary Wrong,
And Truth victorious over Fraud confest,
And new-born nations joining choral song
O'er earth become one temple for thy brother-throng !
Hail, sun-bright Liberty ! Life-source of Truth,
Without whom Knowledge waxeth sere, and falls
Into her dotage ; while with lusty youth
Thou sinewest Reason till she disenthrals
Her essence of Time's dreams, nor basely crawls
At eld Authority's decrepid feet;
But calmly to the toil of search upcalls
Her vigour, and full soon each plausive cheat
Detects, and winnoweth Folly's chaff from Wisdom's
wheat.
ii4 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Thou great palladium of the moral man,
If thee by sloth self-treasonous he lose,
Or foiled by force, or duped by charlatan,
How soon the serfish spirit doth diffuse
Its influence through blood, and bones, and thews,
Until his very form, his brow, his look,
Forfeit their grandeur, and each gesture shows,
Ere the low whine follows his lord's rebuke,
What depth of insult, now, his slavish soul can brook !
But, garbed in humblest gear, if his birthright
Be yet unbartered, unpurloined, unstained;
If still his forehead wear thy sigil bright ;
How noble is his mien, how unconstrained
He stands a witness for the truth, unfeigned,
Or champion for the right, o'erawing kings
And lordly powers, who feel as if arraigned
Before their culprit; and with homagings
Are fain to bow, and own themselves but meaner things.
From The Purgatory of Suicides.
CHARTIST SONG.
THE time shall come when Wrong shall end,
When peasant to peer no more shall bend
When the lordly Few shall lose their sway,
And the Many no more their frown obey.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the work is done
Till the struggle is o'er, and the Charter won 1
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 115
The time shall come when the artisan
Shall homage no more the titled man
When the moiling men who delve the mine
By Mammon's decree no more shall pine.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the work is done
Till the struggle is o'er, and the Charter won !
The time shall come when the weavers' band
Shall hunger no more in their fatherland
When the factory-child can sleep till day,
And smile while it dreams of sport and play.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the work is done
Till the struggle is o'er, and the Charter won !
The time shall come when Man shall hold
His brother more dear than sordid gold
When the Negro's stain his freeborn mind
Shall sever no more from human-kind.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the world is free
Till Justice and Love hold jubilee !
The time shall come when kingly crown
And mitre for toys of the Past are shown
When the Fierce and False alike shall fall,
And Mercy and Truth encircle all.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the world is free
Till Mercy and Truth hold jubilee !
The time shall come when earth shall be
A garden of joy, from sea to sea,
When the slaughterous sword is drawn no more,
And goodness exults from shore to shore.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the world is free,
Till goodness shall hold high jubilee !
ii6 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
CHARTIST CHAUNT.
TRUTH is growing hearts are glowing
With the flame of Liberty :
Light is breaking Thrones are quaking-
Hark ! the trumpet of the Free !
Long, in lowly whispers breathing,
Freedom wandered drearily-
Still, in faith, her laurel wreathing
For the day when there should be
Freemen shouting " Victory ! "
Now, she seeketh him that speaketh
Fearlessly of lawless might ;
And she speedeth him that leadeth
Brethren on to win the Right.
Soon, the slave shall cease to sorrow-
Cease to toil in agony;
Yea, the cry may swell to-rnorrow
Over land and over sea
" Brethren, shout ye all are free !"
Freedom bringeth joy that singeth
All day long and never tires :
No more sadness all is gladness
In the heart that she inspires:
For she breathes a soft compassion
Where the tyrant kindled rage;
And she saith to every nation
" Brethren, cease wild war to wage:
Earth is your blest heritage."
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 117
Though kings render their defender
Titles, gold, and splendours gay
Lo, thy glory, warrior gory,
Like a dream shall fade away !
Gentle Peace her balm of healing
On the bleeding world shall pour;
Brethren, love for brethren feeling,
Shall proclaim, from shore to shore,
" Shout the sword shall slay no more ! :>
u8 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
/. A. LEATHERLAND.
Born 1812.
[In youth a factory hand ; afterwards a lecturer and verse-
writer. The following song was published in the Chartist Hymn-
w ook, and is said to have been sung at mass meetings.]
SONG.
BASE Oppressors, leave your slumbers,
Listen to a nation's cry ;
Hark ! united, countless numbers,
Swell the peal of agony !
Lo ! from Britain's sons and daughters,
In the depths of misery
Like the sound of many waters
Comes the cry " we will be free ! "
Tyrants quail ! the dawn is breaking
Dawn of Freedom's glorious day;
Despots on their thrones are quaking,
Iron bands are giving way ;
Kingcraft, priestcraft, black oppression,
Cannot bear our scrutiny ;
We have learnt this startling lesson
" If we will, we may be free ! "
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 119
By our own, our children's charter ;
By the blood that fires our veins;
By each truth-attesting martyr,
By their tears, and groans, and pains ;
By our rights, by nature given ;
By the voice of Liberty ;
We proclaim before high heaven,
That we must, we will be free !
Winds and waves the tidings carry ;
Spirits, in your stormy car,
Wing'd with lightnings, do not tarry ;
Bear the news to lands afar !
Tell them sound the thrilling story,
Louder than the thunder's glee
That a people, ripe for glory,
Is determined to be free.
10
J2o SONGS OF FREEDOM.
CHARLES MA CKA K
18141889.
[A well-known journalist and miscellaneous writer. Author
of "Voices from the Crowd," 1846.]
CLEAR THE WAY.
MEN of thought ! be up and stirring
Night and day \
Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain,
Clear the way !
Men of action, aid and cheer them,
As ye may !
There's a fount about to stream,
There's a light about to beam,
There's a warmth about to glow,
There's a flower about to blow;
There's a midnight blackness changing
Into grey !
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way !
Once the welcome light has broken,
Who shall say
What the unimagined glories
Of the day? "
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
What the evil that shall perish
In its ray ?
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen ;
Aid it, hopes of honest men ;
Aid it, paper, aid it type,
Aid it, for the hour is ripe ;
And our earnest must not slacken
Into play.
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way.
Lo ! a cloud's about to vanish
From the day ;
And a brazen wrong to crumble
Into clay.
Lo ! the Right's about to conquer,
Clear the way !
With the Right shall many more
Enter smiling at the door ;
With the giant Wrong shall fall
Many others great and small,
That for ages long have held us
For their prey.
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way '
121
122 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JOHN JEFFRE K
Born 1849.
[Author of "Lays of the Revolutions."]
THE EMANCIPATION OF THE PRESS.
Ho ! ye watchmen of our Europe through the night of
ages drear,
See ye in the East the first faint flush that tells the night
is near,
Worn and ghastly with your vigils till the crimson Dawn
be born,
Springing, like a flame -crowned Titan, from the moun-
tains of the morn ?
Ay ! "a light ! a light ! " the watchers shout, its radiance
comes at last,
Long the spell-bound world slept girdled with the black-
ness thick and vast ;
But the shadows die in purple, and the purple dies in
day,
And the high peaks of the orient hills smite back the
conquering ray.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 123
It has shone in golden Tuscany, the chains are shivered
there ;
And the priest-rid Romans start to life from their lethargic
lair;
And the light assumed a fierier tinge, and more triumphant
flushed,
When it hung o'er giant Austria as grey Metternich was
crushed.
It has gleamed on Naples' blood-drenched streets, its
torch-like banners shine
All along the track of cities mirrored in the sapphire
Rhine;
From the Baltic's booming breakers to the tideless inland
sea
That lisps cradle-songs on southern shores, the rays flash
fast and free.
But the glorious light still glances, while the Revolution's
surge
Bears in like the stormy petrel on the billow's topmost
verge ;
And, inspired by its rays, the new-born nations shout in
glee,
"Down for ever with the censorship; the Press, the
Press, is free ! "
124 SOJVGS OF FREEDOM.
CHARLES KINGSLE K
18191875.
ALTON LOCKE'S SONG,
1848.
WEEP, weep, weep, and weep
For pauper, dolt, and slave !
Hark ! from wasted moor and fen,
Feverous alley, stifling den,
Swells the wail of Saxon men
Work ! or the grave !
Down, down, down, and down
With idler, knave, and tyrant !
Why for sluggards cark and moil ?
He that will not live by toil
Has no right on English soil !
God's word's our warrant.
Up, up, up, and up !
Face your game and play it !
The night is past, behold the sun !
The idols fall, the lie is done !
The Judge is set, the doom begun !
Who shall stay it ?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 125
THE DAY OF THE LORD.
THE Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand :
Its storms roll up the sky :
The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold ;
All dreamers toss and sigh ;
The night is darkest before the morn ;
When the pain is sorest the child is born,
And the Day of the Lord at hand.
Gather you, gather you, angels of God
Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth;
Come ! for the Earth is grown coward and old,
Come down, and renew us her youth.
Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and Love,
Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above,
To the Day of the Lord at hand.
Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell
Famine, and Plague, and War ;
Idleness, Bigotry, Cant, and Misrule,
Gather, and fall in the snare !
Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave,
Crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave,
In the Day of the Lord at hand.
Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold,
While the Lord of all ages is here ?
True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of God,
And those who can suffer, can dare.
Each old age of gold was an iron age too,
And the meekest of saints may find stern work to do,
In the Day of the Lord at hand.
126 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ON THE DEATH OF A CERTAIN JOURNAL.
So die, thou child of stormy dawn,
Thou winter flower, forlorn of nurse;
Chilled early by the bigot's curse,
The pedant's frown, the worldling's yawn.
Fair death, to fall in teeming June,
When every seed which drops to earth
Takes root, and wins a second birth
From steaming shower and gleaming moon.
Fall warm, fall fast, thou mellow rain ;
Thou rain of God, make fat the land ;
That roots which parch in burning sand
May bud to flower and fruit again.
To grace, perchance, a fairer morn
In mightier lands beyond the sea,
While honour falls to such as we
From hearts of heroes yet unborn.
Who in the light of fuller day,
Of purer science, holier laws,
Bless us, faint heralds of their cause,
Dim beacons of their glorious way.
Failure ? While tide-floods rise and boil
Round cape and isle, in port and cove,
Resistless, star-led from above :
What though our tiny wave recoil ?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 127
ERNEST JONES.
18191868.
[The famous Chartist leader and poet. He was sentenced in
1848 to two years' imprisonment.]
SONG OF THE " LOWER CLASSES."
WE plow and sow, we're so very very low,
That we delve in the dirty clay ;
Till we bless the plain with the golden grain,
And the vale with the fragrant hay.
Our place we know, we're so very very low,
'Tis down at the landlord's feet :
We're not too low the grain to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.
Down, down we go, we're so very very low,
To the hell of the deep-sunk mines ;
But we gather the proudest gems that glow,
When the crown of the despot shines ;
And whene'er he lacks, upon our backs
Fresh loads he deigns to lay ;
We're far too low to vote the tax,
But not too low to pay.
We're low, we're low we're very very low,
And yet from our fingers glide
The silken flow and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride ;
128 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
And what we get, and what we give,
We know, and we know our share ;
We're not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the cloth to wear.
We're low, we're low, we're very very low,
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man's arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.
We're low, we're low mere rabble, we know-
We're only the rank and the file ;
We're not too low to kill the foe,
But too low to share the spoil.
LIBERTY.
THY birthplace where, young Liberty ?
In graves, 'mid heroes' ashes.
Thy dwelling where, sweet Liberty?
In hearts, where free blood dashes.
Thy best hope where, dear Liberty ?
In fast upwinging time.
Thy first strength where, proud Liberty ?
In thine oppressor's crime.
Thy safety where, stray Liberty ?
In lands where discord cease.
Thy glory where, bright Liberty ?
In universal Peace.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 129
HYMN FOR LAMMAS-DAY.
SHARPEN the sickle ; the fields are white;
'Tis the time of the harvest at last.
Reapers, be up with the morning light,
Ere the blush of its youth be past.
Why stand on the highway and lounge at the gate,
With a summer day's work to perform ?
If you wait for the hiring 'tis long you may wait
Till the hour of the night and the storm.
Sharpen the sickle ; how proud they stand
In the pomp of their golden grain !
But I'm thinking, ere noon 'neath the sweep of my
hand,
How many will lie on the plain!
Though the ditch be wide, the fence be high,
There's a spirit to carry us o'er :
For God never meant his people to die
In sight of so rich a store.
Sharpen the sickle ; how full the ears 1
Our children are crying for bread ;
And the field has been watered with orphans' tears
And enriched with their fathers' dead ;
And hopes that are buried, and hearts that broke,
Lie deep in the treasuring sod :
Then sweep down the grain with a thunderstroke,
In the name of humanity's God!
130 SO1VGS OF FREEDOM.
THE SONG OF THE WAGE-SLAVE.
THE land it is the landlord's,
The trader's is the sea,
The ore the usurer's coffer fills
But what remains for me ?
The engine whirls for master's craft ;
The steel shines to defend,
With labour's arms, what labour raised,
For labour's foe to spend.
The camp, the pulpit, and the law
For rich men's sons are free ;
Theirs, theirs the learning, art, and arms
But what remains for me ?
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make that future now.
I pay for all their learning,
I toil for all their ease ;
They render back, in coin for coin,
Want, ignorance, disease:
Toil, toil and then a cheerless home,
Where hungry passions cross;
Eternal gain to them that give
To me eternal loss!
The hour of leisured happiness
The rich alone may see ;
The playful child, the smiling wife
But what remains for me ?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 131
They render back, those rich men,
A pauper's niggard fee,
Mayhap a prison, then a grave,
And think they're quits with me ;
But not a fond wife's heart that breaks,
A poor man's child that dies,
We score not on our hollow cheeks
And in our sunken eyes ;
We read it there, where'er we meet,
And as the sum we see,
Each asks, " The rich have got the earth,
And what remains for me ? "
We bear the wrong in silence,
We store it in our brain ;
They think us dull, they think us dead,
But we shall rise again:
A trumpet through the lands will ring;
A heaving through the mass;
A trampling through their palaces
Until they break like glass:
We'll cease to weep by cherished graves,
From lonely homes we'll flee;
And still, as rolls our million march,
Its watchword brave shall be
The coming hope, the future day,
When wrong to right shall bow,
And hearts that have the courage, man,
To make the future now.
132 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
PRISON FANCIES.
COMPOSED WHEN CONFINED IN A SOLITARY CELL,
ON BREAD AND WATER, WITHOUT BOOKS OR WRITING
MATERIALS, MAY 1849.
TROUBLESOME fancies beset me
Sometimes as I sit in my cell,
That comrades and friends may forget me,
And foes may remember too well.
That plans which I thought well digested
May prove to be bubbles of air;
And hopes when they come to be tested
May turn to the seed of despair.
But tho' I may doubt all beside me,
And anchor and cable may part,
Whatever whatever betide me,
Forbid me to doubt my own heart !
For sickness may wreck a brave spirit,
And time wear the brain to a shade;
And dastardly age disinherit
Creations that manhood has made.
But, God ! let me ne'er cease to cherish
The truths I so fondly have held !
Far sooner, at once let me perish,
Ere firmness and courage are quelled.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 133
Tho' my head in the dust may be lying,
And bad men exult o'er my fall,
I shall smile at them smile at them, dying:
The Right is the Right, after all !
EASTER HYMN.
CRUCIFIED, crucified every morn;
Beaten and scourged, and crowned with thorn ;
Scorned and spat on, and drenched with gall ;
Brothers ! how long shall we bear their thrall ?
CHORUS Mary and Magdalen, Peter and John,
Hear ye the question and bear it on.
Earthquake revelled, and darkness fell,
To shew 'twas the time of the Kings of Hell !
But the veil is rent they hung so high
To hide their sins from the People's eye.
CHORUS Mary and Magdalen, Peter and John,
Hear ye the tidings, and bear them on.
Like royal robes on the King of Jews,
We're mocked with rights that we may not use,
'Tis the people so long have been crucified,
But the thieves are still wanting on either side.
CHORUS Mary and Magdalen, Peter and John,
Swell the sad burden, and bear it on.
134 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Blood and water ! ay, blood and tears !
Track our path down the stream of years ;
Our limbs they spare our hearts they break:
For they need the former their gold to make.
CHORUS Mary and Magdalen, Peter and John,
Hear ye the warning, and bear it on.
A Sabbath shall come, but not of rest !
When the rich shall be punished the poor redressed ;
And from hamlet to hamlet, from town to town,
The church bells shall ring till the proud fall down.
CHORUS Mary and Magdalen, Peter and John,
Give ye the signal, and bear it on.
The Pharisees revel o'er manor and loom:
We'll blow them a blast on the trump of doom;
It shall raise the dead nations from land to land ;
For the resurrection is nigh at hand !
CHORUS Mary and Magdalen, Peter and John,
Hear the glad tidings, and bear them on.
EASTER, 1850.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 135
GERALD MASSE Y.
Born 1828.
[Member of the Christian Socialist party of 1850. His " Cries
of 'Forty-Eight" appeared in the same year.]
THE PEOPLE'S ADVENT.
'Tis coming up the steep of Time,
And this old world is growing brighter ;
We may not see its Dawn sublime,
Yet high hopes make the heart throb lighter.
Our dust may slumber under-ground
When it awakes the world in wonder ;
But we have felt it gathering round,
We have heard its voice of distant thunder.
'Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming !
'Tis coming now, that glorious time,
Foretold by seers and sung in story,
For which, when thinking was a crime,
Souls leaped to heaven from scaffolds gory.
They passed. But lo ! the work they have wrought,
Now the crowned hopes of centuries blossom !
The lightning of their living thought
Is flashing through us, brain and bosom :
'Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming !
11
i 3 6 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Creeds, empires, systems, rot with age,
But the great People's ever youthful ;
And it shall write the Future's page
To our Humanity more truthful ;
The gnarliest heart hath tender chords
To waken at the name of " Brother " :
'Tis coming when these scorpion-words
We shall not speak to sting each other.
'Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming.
Out of the light, you Priests, nor fling
Your dark, cold shadows on us longer.
Aside, thou world-wide curse, called King ;
The People's step is quicker, stronger.
There's a divinity within
That makes men great if they but will it ;
God works with all who dare to win,
And the time cometh to reveal it.
'Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming !
Freedom ! the despots kill thy braves,
Yet in our memories live the sleepers ;
And, though doomed millions feed the graves
Dug by death's fierce, red-handed reapers,
The world will not forever bow
To things that mock God's own endeavour.
'Tis nearer than they wot of now,
When flowers shall wreathe their sword for ever-
'Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming !
Fraternity, love's other name,
Dear, heaven-connected link of being ;
Then shall we grasp thy golden dream,
As souls, full-statured, grow far-seeing :
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 137
Thou shalt unfold our better part,
And in our life-cup yield more honey ;
Light up with joy the Poor Man's heart,
And Love's own world with smiles more sunny.
Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming !
Ay, it must come ! The tyrant's throne
Is crumbling, with our hot tears rusted ;
The sword earth's mighty have leant on
Is cankered, with our best blood crusted.
Room for the men of mind ! Make way
You robber rulers, pause no longer :
You cannot stay the opening day !
The world rolls on, the light grows stronger-
The People's Advent's coming !
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW.
HIGH hopes that burned like stars sublime
Go down i' the Heaven of Freedom,
And true hearts perish in the time
We bitterliest need 'em ;
But never sit we down and say
There's nothing left but sorrow ;
We walk the Wilderness To-day,
The Promised Land To-morrow.
Our birds of song are silent now ;
Few are the flowers blooming ;
Yet life is in the frozen bough,
And Freedom's Spring is coming ;
138 SONGS OF FREEDOM,
And Freedom's tide creeps up alway,
Though we may strand in sorrow ;
And our good Bark, a-ground To-day,
Shall float again To-morrow.
'Tis weary watching wave by wave,
And yet the tide heaves onward ;
We climb, like corals, grave by grave,
That pave a pathway sunward ;
We are driven back, for our next fray
A newer strength to borrow,
And where the Vanguard camps To-day,
The Rear shall rest To-morrow.
Through all the long, dark night of years
The people's cry ascendeth,
And earth is wet with blood and tears,
But our meek sufferance endeth.
The few shall not for ever sway,
The many moil in sorrow ;
The Powers of Hell are strong To-day ;
Our Kingdom come To-morrow.
Though hearts brood o'er the Past, our eyes
With smiling Futures glisten ;
For, lo ! our day bursts up the skies,
Lean out your souls and listen.
The world is rolling Freedom's way,
And ripening with her sorrow :
Take heart ; who bear the Cross To-day
Shall wear the crown To-morrow.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 139
Oh, Youth ! flame-earnest, still aspire,
With energies immortal;
To many a heaven of desire
Our yearning opes a portal.
And though Age wearies by the way,
And hearts break in the furrow,
Youth sows the golden grain To-day,
The Harvest comes To-morrow.
Build up heroic lives, and all
Be like a sheathen sabre,
Ready to flash out at God's call,
O Chivalry of Labour !
Triumph and Toil are twins, though they
Be singly born in Sorrow ;
And 'tis the Martyrdom To-day
Brings victory To-morrow.
SONG OF THE RED REPUBLICAN.
FLING out the red Banner ! its fiery front under,
Come, gather ye, gather ye, Champions of Right,
And roll round the world, with the voice of God's
thunder,
The Wrongs we've to reckon, Oppressions to smite.
They think that we strike no more like the old Hero-band,
Victory's own battle-hearted and brave:
Once more, brothers mine, it were sweet but to see yc
stand,
Triumph or Tomb welcome, Glory or Grave!
140 SOJVGS OF FREEDOM.
Fling out the red Banner ! in mountain and valley
Let Earth feel the tread of the Free once again ;
Now soldiers of Liberty make one more rally,
Old Earth yearns to know that her children are Men.
We are nerved by a thousand wrongs, burning and
bleeding;
Bold Thoughts leap to birth, but the bold Deeds must
come;
And wherever Humanity's yearning and pleading,
One battle for Liberty strike we heart-home.
Fling out the red Banner ! achievements immortal
Have yet to be won by the hands labour-brown;
Though few of us enter the proud promise-portal,
Yet wear it in thought like a glorious Crown !
O joy of the onset ! sound trumpet ! array us ;
True hearts would leap up were all hell in our path ;
Up, up from the slave-land ; who stirreth to stay us,
Shall fall, as of old, in a Red Sea of wrath.
Fling out the red Banner, O Sons of the morning !
Young spirits awaiting to burst into wings,
We stand shadow-crowned, but sublime is the warning,
All heaven's grimly hushed, and the Bird of Storm sings.
"All's well," saith the Sentry on Tyranny's tower,
While Hope by his watch-fire is grey and tear-blind;
Ay, all's well ! Freedom's Altar burns, hour by hour,
Live brands for the fire-damp with which ye are mined.
Fling out the red Banner ! the Patriots perish,
But where their bones whiten the seed striketh root :
Their blood hath run red the great harvest to cherish :
Now gather ye, Reapers, and garner the fruit.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 141
Victory ! victory ! Tyrants are quaking !
The Titan of Toil from the bloody thrall starts ;
The Slaves are awaking, the dawn-light is breaking,
The footfall of Freedom beats quick at our hearts !
THE MEN OF 'FORTY-EIGHT.
THEY rose in Freedom's rare sunrise,
Like Giants roused from wine ;
And in their hearts and in their eyes
The God leaped up divine !
Their souls flashed out, naked as swords
Unsheathed for fiery fate :
Strength went like battle with their words-
The men of 'Forty-eight.
Hurrah
For the men of 'Forty-eight.
The Kings have got their Crown again,
And blood-red revel cup ;
They've bound the Titan down again,
And heaped his grave-mound up.
But still he lives, though buried 'neath
The mountain, lies in wait,
Heart-stifled heaves and tries to breathe
The breath of 'Forty-eight.
Hurrah
For the men of 'Forty-eight.
142 SOA'GS OF FREEDOM.
Dark days have fallen, yet in the strife
We bate no hope sublime,
And bravely works the exultant life,
Their hearts pulsed through the time:
As grass is greenest trodden down,
Their suffering makes men great,
And this dark tide shall richly crown
The work of 'Forty-eight.
Hurrah
For the men of 'Forty-eight.
Some in a bloody burial sleep,
Like Greeks to glory gone,
But in their steps avengers leap
With their proof-armour on :
And hearts beat high with dauntless trust
To triumph soon or late,
Though they be mouldering down in dust
The men of 'Forty-eight !
Hurrah
For the men of 'Forty-eight.
O when the World wakes up to worst
The Tyrants once again,
And Freedom's summons-shout shall burst,
Rare music ! on the brain,
Old Truehearts still, in many a land,
You will find them all elate
Brave remnant of that Spartan-band,
The men of 'Forty-eight.
Hurrah
For the men of 'Forty-eight.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 143
THE EARTH FOR ALL.
THUS saith the Lord : You weary me
With prayers, and waste your own short years !
Eternal Truth you cannot see
Who weep, and shed your sight in tears.
In vain you wait and watch the skies,
No better fortune thus will fall :
Up from your knees I bid you rise,
And claim the Earth for A v
They ate up Earth, and promised you
The Heaven of an empty shell.
'Twas theirs to say; 'twas yours to do,
On pain of everlasting Hell.
They rob and leave you helplessly
For help of Heaven to cry and call :
Heaven did not make your misery;
The Earth was given for All.
Behold in bonds your Mother Earth ;
The rich man's prostitute and slave,
Your Mother Earth, that gave you birth,
You only own her for a grave.
And will you die like Slaves, and see
Your Mother left a fettered thrall ?
Nay, live like Men, and set her free
As Heritage for All.
144 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
MAR Y HO WITT.
17991888.
["Ballads and other Poems," 1847.]
THE RICH AND THE POOR.
THEY told me, when I was a child,
I was of English birth ;
They called a free-born Englishman
The noblest man on earth.
I thought all rich men good, the poor
Content with life's award ;
I thought each church throughout the land
A temple of the Lord.
I saw the high-born and the poor
Low-bending side by side,
And the meek bishop's holy hands
Diffuse a blessing wide :
And round and round the sacred pile
My reverent fancy went,
Till God and good King George at once
Within my heart were blent.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 145
These were my days of innocence,
Of ignorance and mirth ;
When my wild heart leapt up in joy
Of my pure English birth.
Oh ! England, mother England,
Proud nurse of thriving men,
I've learned to look on many things
With other eyes since then !
I've learned divers lessons ;
Have seen and heard and thought ;
And oftentimes the truest lore
By human woe was taught.
*
Proud was I, when I was a child,
To be of English birth ;
For I surely thought the English-born
Had not a care on earth.
That was my creed when I was young,
It is my creed no more ;
For I know, woe's me ! the difference now
Betwixt the rich and poor.
146 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.
17851866.
RICH AND POOR : OR SAINT AND SINNER.
THE poor man's sins are glaring ;
In the face of ghostly warning,
He is caught in the fact
Of an overt act
Buying greens on Sunday morning.
The rich man's sins are hidden
In the pomp of wealth and station ;
And escape the sight
Of the children of light,
Who are wise in their generation.
The rich man has a kitchen
And cooks to dress his dinner ;
The poor who would roast
To the baker's must post,
And thus becomes a sinner.
The rich man has a cellar,
And a butler ready by him ;
The poor must steer
For his pint of beer
Where the saint can't choose but spy him.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 147
The rich man's painted windows
Hide the concerts of the quality;
The poor can but share
A crack'd fiddle in the air,
Which offends all sound morality.
The rich man is invisible
In the crowd of his gay society;
But the poor man's delight
Is a sore in the sight,
And a stench in the nose of piety.
The rich man has a carriage
Where no rude eye can flout him ;
The poor man's bane
Is a third-class train,
With the daylight all about him.
The rich man goes out yachting,
Where sanctity can't pursue him ;
The poor goes afloat
In a fourpenny boat,
Where the bishop groans to view him.
148 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ROBERT BARNABAS B ROUGH.
1828-1860.
[A London journalist and playwright. His satirical "Songs
of the Governing Classes" appeared in 1859.]
MY LORD TOMNODDY.
MY Lord Tomnoddy's the son of an Earl,
His hair is straight, but his whiskers curl ;
His Lordship's forehead is far from wide,
But there's plenty of room for the brains inside.
He writes his name with indifferent ease,
He's rather uncertain about the " d's,"
But what does it matter, if three or one,
To the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son ?
My Lord Tomnoddy to college went,
Much time he lost, much money he spent ;
Rules, and windows, and heads, he broke
Authorities wink'd young men will joke !
He never peep'd inside of a book
In two years' time a degree he took ;
And the newspapers vaunted the honours won
By the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.
My Lord Tomnoddy came out in the world,
Waists were tighten'd, and ringlets curl'd.
Virgins languish'd, and matrons smil'd
'Tis true, his Lordship is rather wild ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 149
In very queer places he spends his life ;
There's talk of some children, by nobody's wife
But we mustn't look close into what is done
By the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.
My Lord Tomnoddy must settle down
There's a vacant seat in the family town !
('Tis time he should sow his eccentric oats)
He hasn't the wit to apply for votes :
He cannot e'en learn his election speech,
Three phrases he speaks a mistake in each !
And then breaks down but the borough is won
For the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.
My Lord Tomnoddy prefers the Guards,
(The House is a bore) so ! it's on the cards !
My Lord's a Lieutenant at twenty-three,
A Captain at twenty-six is he
He never drew sword, except on drill ;
The tricks of parade he has learnt but ill
A full-blown Colonel at thirty-one
Is the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son !
My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four ;
The Earl can last but a few years more.
My Lord in the Peers will take his place :
Her Majesty's councils his words will grace.
Office he'll hold, and patronage sway ;
Fortunes and lives he will vote away
And what are his qualifications? ONE !
He's the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.
150 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
"A GENTLEMAN."
THERE is a word in the English tongue,
Where I'd rather it were not,
For shams and lies from it have sprung,
And heartburns fierce and hot.
'Tis a tawdry cloak for a dirty soul
'Tis a sanctuary base,
Where the fool and the knave themselves may save
From justice and disgrace.
'Tis a curse to the land deny it who can ?
That self-same boast, " I'm a gentleman! "
It means (if a meaning definite
Can be fix'd to the thing at all)
A well-cut coat, a faultless boot,
A hand that's white and small;
A head well-brush'd, and a shirt well-wash'd,
A lazy heartless stare;
Some sterling pounds, or a name that sounds
With the true patrician air.
These are all you want deny it who can ?
To attain the rank of a gentleman !
But with those claims you may take your ease,
And lounge your long life through,
Without straining a muscle, a nerve, or a thought,
For the world will work for you.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 151
You may be a dolt, or a brute, or a rogue
(In a gentlemanly way),
You may drink, you may bet, you may run in debt,
And never need wish to pay.
There's an amnesty given deny it who can ?
For all the sins of " a gentleman ! "
You may leave your wife, with her children six,
In a ditch to starve and pine,
And another man's take, in a palace rich,
With jewels and gold to shine.
You may flog your horse or your dog to death
You may shoot it, in a fit of rage,
A helpless groom and an easy doom
You'll meet from the jury sage,
' ' There's been provocation deny it who can t
For we see at a glance he's a gentleman ! "
THE STRAWBERRY LEAF.*
OH, a dainty plant is the strawberry leaf,
He groweth from ruins old :
Of right choicie food he must pick the chief,
In his cell so lone and cold.
* An allusion to the ornament of the ducal coronet.
152 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The land must be fertile, and rich the glade,
To pleasure his dainty whim ;
And triumphs of art, that years have made,
Must be kept aside for him,
Eating all, to the nation's grief,
A hungry plant is the strawberry leaf.
Sure he creepeth on (for he wears no wings,
But a slow old coach is he) ;
How quickly he findeth, how tightly he clings
To good things, wherever they be.
And spreading his tendrils along the ground,
Each labouring foot he enslaves,
And joyously hugs, as he thrives around,
The mould of dead warriors' graves.
Flourishing on, amidst death and grief,
A poisonous plant is the strawberry leaf.
But a garden fair to be overrun
With a noxious troublesome weed,
Is a sign of the gardener's work ill done,
And must remedied be with speed.
So, torn by the roots from each bed and tree,
And into the bonfire cast,
To blaze on the dunghill, perchance, may be
The strawberry's fate at last.
Burnt like straw, in a piled-up sheaf,
We'll hail the smoke from the strawberry leaf
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 153
" VULGAR DECLAMATION."
A LESSON FOR THE YOUNG.
" But, Sir, I do protest against the language we have heard
this evening from the Hon. Member, who has thought proper to
mingle with his observations and comments a deal of what I
must call vulgar declamation against the aristocracy of this
country." LORD PALMERSTON.
MY son, if Fate in store for you
Should have the wond'rous bounty,
To let you live to represent
A borough or a county
I'd have you do your duty well,
According to your station,
And guard, o'er all, against the use
Of VULGAR DECLAMATION.
I hope you'll never tell the House
That all men's rights are equal
That woe to Nations still must be
Of Monarchs' Wars the sequel;
Or that a pauper can be found
In all the British nation:
For if you do, you'll be accused
Of VULGAR DECLAMATION.
Avoid allusions to the Church,
Except, indeed, to praise it;
Don't rail against a Bishop's pay,
But give your vote to raise it ;
154 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Don't say that forty pounds a year
Is scant remuneration
For working clergymen, because
That's VULGAR DECLAMATION.
The Prince of Wales is just your age,
Together you will grow up;
He'll soon want money and a wife,
Don't when the time comes blow up
His marriage grant, however great,
Or heavy on the nation
That stinting princes is the worst
Of VULGAR DECLAMATION.
And then when common soldiers claim
Their share of wealth and glory,
And grudge the lions all the prize,
Don't you take up the story.
And as for giving working men
Ideas above their station,
'Tis positively wrong, as well
As VULGAR DECLAMATION.
And, lastly if some noble name
Should get by chance mix'd up in
Some awkward case of " starved to death,"
Or arsenic, a cup in,
Just hush it up, and hope, at least,
There's some exaggeration ;
But don't, for Heaven's sake, indulge
In VULGAR DECLAMATION.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 155
WILLIAM JAMES LIN TON.
Born 1812.
[Chartist poet ; friend and fellow- worker of Mazzini ; has lived
in America since 1867. Many of his contributions to the English
Repu blic were written under the noin deplumeoi " Spartacus."]
THE HAPPY LAND.
THE Happy Land !
Studded with cheerful homesteads, fair to see,
With garden grace and household symmetry:
How grand the wide-brow'd peasant's lordly mien,
The matron's smile serene !
O happy, happy Land !
The Happy Land !
Half-hid in the dewy grass the mower blithe
Sings to the day-star as he whets his scythe;
And to his babes at eventide again
Carols as blithe a strain.
O happy, happy Land !
The Happy Land !
Where in the golden sheen of autumn eves
The bright-hair'd children play among the sheaves;
Or gather ripest apples all the day,
As ruddy-cheek'd as they.
O happy, happy Land !
156 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
O Happy Land !
The thin smoke curleth through the frosty air ;
The light smiles from the windows: hearken there
To the white grandsire's tale of heroes old,
To flame-eyed listeners told.
O happy, happy Land!
O Happy, Happy Land !
The tender-foliaged alders scarcely shade
Yon loitering lover and glad blushing maid.
O happy Land ! the spring that quickens thee
Is human liberty.
O happy, happy Land !
THE COMING DAY.
THE day when we are freemen all, whenever that shall
be,
Will surely be the worthiest that earth can ever see :
When man unto his fellow-man, whatever may befall,
Holds out the palm of fellowship, and Love is lord of all :
When man and woman hand in hand along life's path-
way go,
And the days of human joy eclipse the sorrow long ago.
The day when we are freemen all, when equal rights
and laws
Shall rule the commonwealth of earth, amid a world's
applause ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 157
When equal rights and duties claim the equal care of all,
And man as man beneath high heaven assumes his
coronal ;
When the Day of Pentecost is come, when the poor
man's hearth shall be
An altar for the beacon-fire of Peace and Liberty.
The day when we are freemen all, the day when
thoughts are free
To travel as the winds of heaven toward their destiny;
When man is sovereign of himself and to himself the
priest,
And crowned Wisdoms recognise the manhood of the
least.
Then God shall walk again with man, and fruitful con-
verse grow
As in the morn of Paradise a long time ago.
But holier still shall be the day when human hearts shall
dare
To kneel before one common Hope, the common toil to
share,
When Love shall throw his armour off, to wrestle with
the Fear,
The Selfishness which is the seal upon the sepulchre.
Hark to the voices of the Years, the springtide of their
glee,
Love hath o'ercome the prophecy; Humanity is free.
158 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
PATIENCE.
[This poem, which first appeared in the Irish Nation, has
been wrongly attributed, in some collections, to Archbishop
Trench.]
BE patient, O be patient! Put your ear against the
earth ;
Listen there how noiselessly the germ o' the seed has
birth ;
How noiselessly and gently it upheaves its little way
Till it parts the scarcely-broken ground, and the blade
stands up in the day !
Be patient, O be patient ! the germs of mighty thought
Must have their silent undergrowth, must underground
be wrought ;
But, as sure as ever there's a Power that makes the grass
appear,
Our land shall be green with Liberty, the blade-time
shall be here.
Be patient, O be patient ! go and watch the wheat-ears
grow,
So imperceptibly that ye can mark nor change nor throe:
Day after day, day after day, till the ear is fully grown ;
And then again day after day till the ripened field is
brown.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 159
Be patient, O be patient! though yet our hopes are
green,
The harvest-field of Freedom shall be crown'd with the
sunny sheen ;
Be ripening ! be ripening ! mature your silent way
Till the whole broad land is tongued with fire on Free-
dom's harvest day !
THE TORCH-DANCE OF LIBERTY.
PASS the torch from hand to hand,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Pass the flame from land to land,
Liberty ! Liberty !
As wild sounds dance o'er the lyre,
As the stars fulfil their choir,
Tread we so our song of fire,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Pass the flame from hand to hand,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Never let the flame-cup stand,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Pledge we Freedom, one and all,
Each unto his fellow call,
With pomp and frenzy bacchanal,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Pass the flame from hand to hand,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Fire the thoughts of every land,
Liberty ! Liberty !
160 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Like a tempest-flag unfurling,
Like a bark from harbour swirling,
Sweeps the torch, forever whirling,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Pass like love from hand to hand,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Touch the hearts of every land,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Till the tongued flame eclipse
The melody of clinging lips,
Till the whirlwind it outstrips,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Pass the torch from hand to hand,
Liberty ! Liberty I
Pass the flame from land to land,
Liberty ! Liberty !
As an eagle sweepeth by,
As the stars leap through the sky,
Rusheth on our beacon-cry,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Speed the torch from hand to hand,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Feed the fires of every land,
Liberty ! Liberty !
Till no hearth uncheer'd shall be,
Till on Love's broad altar we
Lighten up Eternity,
Liberty ! Liberty !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 161
HEART AND WILL.
OUR England's heart is sound as oak;
Our English will is firm;
And through our actions Freedom spoke,
In History's proudest term:
When Blake was lord from shore to shore,
And Cromwell ruled the land,
And Milton's words were shields of power
To stay the oppressor's hand.
Our England's heart is yet as sound,
As firm our English will ;
And tyrants, be they cowl'd or crown'd,
Shall find us fearless still.
And though our Vane be in his tomb,
Though Hampden's blood is cold,
Their spirits live to lead our doom
As in the days of old.
Our England's heart is stout as oak ;
Our English will as brave
As when indignant Freedom spoke
From Eliot's prison grave.
And closing yet again with Wrong,
A world in arms shall see
Our England foremost of the Strong
And first among the Free.
i62 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR.
17751864.
TYRANNICIDE.
DANGER is not in action, but in sloth;
By sloth alone we lose
Our strength, our substance, and, far more than both,
The guerdon of the Muse.
Men kill without compunction hawk and kite;
To save the folded flock
They chase the wily plunderer of the night
O'er thicket, marsh, and rock.
Sacred no longer is Our Lord the wolf
Nor crown'd is crocodile :
And shall ye worship on the Baltick Gulph
The refuse of the Nile ?
Among the myriad men of murder'd sires
Is there not one still left
Whom wrongs and vengeance urge when virtue fires?
One conscious how bereft
Of all is he ... of country, kindred, home . . .
He, doom'd to drag along
The dray of serfdom, or thro' lands to roam
That mock an unknown tongue ?
A better faith was theirs than pulpits preach
Who struck the tyrant down,
Who taught the brave how patriot brands can reach
And crush the proudest crown.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 163
No law for him who stands above the law,
Trampling on truth and trust;
But hangman's hook or courtier's privy paw
Shall drag him thro' the dust.
Most dear of all the Virtues to her Sire
Is Justice; and most dear
To Justice is Tyrannicide; the fire
That guides her flashes near.
See o'er the desert God's red pillar tower!
Follow, ye Nations ! raise
The hymn to God ! To God alone be power
And majesty and praise !
1 64 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ROBERT BROWNING.
18121891.
THE LOST LEADER.
JUST for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service !
Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud !
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die !
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their
graves !
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves !
We shall march prospering, not thro' his presence ;
Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done, while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire :
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 165
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God !
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us !
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again !
Best fight on well, for we taught him strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own ;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne.
166 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.
18281889.
THE TOUCHSTONE.
A MAN there came, whence none could tell,
Bearing a Touchstone in his hand ;
And tested all things in the land
By its unerring spell.
Quick birth of transmutation smote
The fair to foul, the foul to fair ;
Purple nor ermine did he spare,
Nor scorn the dusty coat.
Of heirloom jewels, prized so much,
Were many changed to chips and clods,
And even statues of the gods
Crumbled beneath its touch.
Then angrily the people cried,
" The loss outweighs the profit far;
Our goods suffice us as they are;
We will not have them tried."
SOA'GS OF FREEDOM. 167
And since they could not so prevail
To check his unrelenting quest,
They seized him, saying " Let him test
How real it is, our jail ! "
But, tho' they slew him with the sword,
And in a fire his Touchstone burn'd,
Its doings could not be o'erturn'd,
Its undoings restored.
And when, to stop all future harm,
They strew'd its ashes on the breeze ;
They little guess'd each grain of these
Convey'd the perfect charm.
North, south, in rings and amulets,
Throughout the crowded world 'tis borne;
Which, as a fashion long outworn.
Its ancient mind forgets.
13
1 68 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU.
18171862.
INDEPENDENCE.
MY life more civil is and free
Than any civil polity.
Ye princes, keep your realms
And circumscribed power,
Not wide as are my dreams,
Nor rich as is this hour.
What can ye give which I have not?
What can ye take which I have got ?
Can ye defend the dangerless?
Can ye inherit nakedness ?
To all true wants time's ear is deaf,
Penurious States lend no relief
Out of their pelf.
But a free soul thank God
Can help itself.
Be sure your fate
Doth keep apart its state,
Not linked with any band,
Even the noblest in the land,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 169
In tented fields with cloth of gold
No place doth hold,
But is more chivalrous than they are,
And sigheth for a nobler war ;
A finer strain its trumpet rings,
A brighter gleam its armour flings.
The life that I aspire to live,
No man proposeth me ;
No trade upon the street
Wears its emblazonry.
170 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
EMIL Y BRONTE.
18181848.
THE OLD STOIC.
RICHES I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn ;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn.
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, " Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty."
Yes, as my swift days near their goal
'Tis all that I implore ;
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 171
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
18051879.
[The famous abolitionist ; editor of The Liberator, 1831-1866.]
INDEPENDENCE DAY.
PART I.
THE bells are ringing merrily,
The cannon loudly roar,
And thunder-shouts for Liberty
Are heard from shore to shore ;
And countless banners to the breeze
Their stars and stripes display :
What call for sights and sounds like these ?
'Tis Independence day !
Our fathers spurned the British yoke,
Determined to be free ;
And full of might they rose and broke
The chains of tyranny !
O long they toiled, with zeal unfeigned,
And kept their foes at bay,
Till, by their valorous deeds, they gained
Our Independence day.
172 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
They fought not for themselves alone,
But for the rights of all,
Of every caste, complexion, zone,
On this terrestrial ball :
To God they made their high appeal,
In hope, not in dismay ;
For well they trusted He would seal
Their Independence day !
Their creed how just their creed how grand !
ALL MEN ARE EQUAL BORN !
Let those who cannot understand
This truth be laughed to scorn !
Cheers for the land in which we live,
The free, the fair, the gay !
And hearty thanks to Heaven we'll give
For Independence day !
PART II,
O GOD ! what mockery is this !
Our land how lost to shame 1
Well may all Europe jeer and hiss
At mention of her name !
For, while she boasts of Liberty,
'Neath Slavery's iron sway
Three millions of her people lie,
On Independence day !
She may not, must not, thus rejoice,
Nor of her triumphs tell :
Hushed be the cannon's thundering voice,
And muffled every bell !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 173
Dissolved in tears, prone in the dust,
For mercy let her pray,
That judgments on her may not burst
On Independence day !
Lo ! where her starry banner waves
In many a graceful fold
There toil, and bleed, and groan her slaves,
And men, like brutes, are sold !
Her hands are red with crimson stains,
And bloody is her way ;
She wields the lash, she forges chains,
On Independence day.
Friends of your country, of your race,
Of Freedom, and of God !
Combine, Oppression to efface,
And break the tyrant's rod ;
All traces of injustice sweep,
By moral power, away ;
Then a glorious jubilee we'll keep
On Independence day !
174 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
TO AN ELOQUENT ADVOCATE OF INDIAN
RIGHTS.
IF unto marble statues thou had'st spoken,
Or icy hearts congealed by polar years,
The strength of thy pure eloquence had broken
Its generous heat had melted them to tears ;
Which pearly drops had been a rainbow-token,
Bidding the redmen soothe their gloomy fears.
If Honour, Justice, Truth, had not forsaken
The place once hallowed as their bright abode,
The faith of Treaties never had been shaken,
Our country would have kept the trust she owed ;
Nor Violence nor Treachery had taken
Away those rights which Nature's God bestowed.
Fruitless thy mighty efforts vain appealing
To grasping Avarice, that ne'er relents ;
To Party Power, that shamelessly is stealing,
Banditti-like, whatever spoil it scents ;
To base Intrigue, his cloven foot revealing,
That struts in Honesty's habiliments.
Our land, once green as Paradise, is hoary,
E'en in its youth, with tyranny and crime ;
Its soil with blood of Afric's sons is gory,
Whose wrongs Eternity can tell not Time ;
The redman's woes shall swell the damning story,
To be rehearsed in every age and clime !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 175
THE TRIUMPH OF FREEDOM.
GOD speed the year of jubilee,
The wide world o'er !
When, from their galling chains set free,
The oppressed shall vilely bend the knee
And wear the yoke of tyranny,
Like brutes, no more :
That year will come, and Freedom's reign
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.
God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow !
In every clime be understood
The claims of Human Brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good
Not blow for blow :
That day will come, all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.
God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power.
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower,
But all to Manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth !
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his prison-house the thrall
Go forth.
1 76 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Until that year, day, hour arrive,
If life be given ;
With head and heart and hand I'll strive
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive,
So witness Heaven !
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.
HOPE FOR THE ENSLAVED.
YE who in bondage pine,
Shut out from light divine,
Bereft of hope ;
Whose limbs are worn with chains,
Whose tears bedew our plains,
Whose blood our glory stains,
In gloom who grope :
Shout ! for the hour draws nigh,
That gives you liberty !
And from the dust,
So long your vile embrace,
Uprising, take your place
Among earth's noblest race
'Tis right and just !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 177
The night, the long, long night
Of infamy and slight,
Shame and disgrace,
And slavery, worse than e'er
Rome's serfs were doomed to bear,
Bloody beyond compare,
Recedes apace !
Lorn Africa, once more,
As proudly as of yore,
Shall yet be seen
Foremost of all the earth
In learning, beauty, worth
By dignity of birth,
A peerless Queen !
Speed, speed the hour, O Lord 1
Speak, and at thy dread word,
Fetters shall fall
From every limb the strong
No more the weak shall wrong,
But Liberty's sweet song
Be sung by all 1
178 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ELIZABETH M. CHANDLER.
13071834.
[Author of many religious and philanthropical works ; took a
prominent part in the anti-slavery agitation.]
SLAVE-PRODUCE.
EAT ! they are cates for a lady's lip,
Rich as the sweets that the wild bees sip ;
Mingled viands that nature hath pour'd
From the plenteous stores of her flowing board,
Bearing no trace of man's cruelty save
The red life-drops of his human slave.
List thee, lady ! and turn aside,
With a loathing heart, from the feast of pride;
For, mix'd with the pleasant sweets it bears,
Is the hidden curse of scalding tears,
Wrung out from woman's bloodshot eye
By the depth of her deadly agony.
Look ! they are robes from a foreign loom,
Delicate, light, as the rose-leafs bloom;
Stainless and pure in their snowy tint
As the drift unmark'd by a footstep's print.
Surely such garments should fitting be
For woman's softness and purity.
SOA'GS OF FREEDOM. 179
Yet fling them off from thy shrinking limb,
For sighs have render'd their brightness dim ;
And many a mother's shriek and groan,
And many a daughter's burning moan,
And many a sob of wild despair
From woman's heart is lingering there.
THE ENFRANCHISED SLAVES AND THEIR
BENEFACTRESS.
OH, blessings on thee, lady ! we could lie
Down at thy feet, in our deep gratitude,
And give ourselves to die,
So thou could'st be made happier by our blood;
Yet life has never seem'd so dear as now,
That we may lift a free unbranded brow.
Free ! free ! how glorious 'tis to lift an eye,
Unblenching beneath infamy and shame,
To the blue boundless sky,
And feel each moment from our hearts the tame
Dull pulses of our vileness pass away,
Like sluggish mists before the rising day.
And then our infants ! we shall never see
Their young limbs cheapen'd at the public mart,
Or shrink in agony
To view them writhe beneath the cruel smart
Of the rude lash; they ne'er like us shall know
The slave's dark lot of wretchedness and woe.
i8o SONGS OF FREEDOM.
For this we bless thee, lady ! and may Heaven
Pour down its frequent blessings on thy brow ;
And to thy life be given
Oft, through its sunset hours, such bliss as now
Is swelling round thy heart scarce less than theirs
Who pour for thee their deep and grateful prayers.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 181
JOHN P1ERPONT.
17851866.
[Unitarian minister and abolitionist; author of "Airs of
Palestine," 18iO.]
THE CHAIN.
Is it his daily toil that wrings
From the slave's bosom that deep sigh ?
Is it his niggard fare that brings
The tear into his downcast eye ?
Oh no; by toil and humble fare
Earth's sons their health and vigour gain ;
It is because the slave must wear
His chain.
Is it the sweat from every pore
That starts, and glistens in the sun,
As, the young cotton bending o'er,
His naked back it shines upon ?
Is it the drops that from his breast
Into the thirsty furrows fall,
That scald his soul, deny him rest,
And turn his cup of life to gall ?
182 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
No; for, that man with sweating brow
Shall eat his bread, doth God ordain ;
This the slave's spirit doth not bow;
It is his chain.
Is it, that scorching sands and skies
Upon his velvet skin have set
A hue, admired in beauty's eyes,
In Genoa's silks, and polished jet?
No ; for this colour was his pride,
When roaming o'er his native plain ;
Even here, his hue can he abide,
But not his chain.
Nor is it, that his back and limbs
Are scored with many a gory gash,
That his heart bleeds, and his brain swims,
And the MAN dies beneath the lash.
For Baal's priests, on Carmel's slope,
Themselves with knives and lancets scored
Till the blood spurted, in the hope
The god would hear whom they adored ;
And Christian flagellants their backs
All naked to the scourge have given ;
And martyrs to the stakes and racks
Have gone, of choice, in hope of heaven ;-
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 183
For here there was an inward will !
Here spake the spirit, upward tending ;
And o'er Faith's cloud-girt altar, still,
Hope hung her rainbow, heavenward bending.
But will and hope hath not the slave,
His bleeding spirit to sustain:
No he must drag on, to the grave,
His chain.
1 84 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
1807-1882.
THE WARNING.
BEWARE ! The Israelite of old, who tore
The lion in his path when, poor and blind,
He saw the blessed light of heaven no more,
Shorn of his noble strength, and forced to grind
In prison, and at last led forth to be
A pander to Philistine revelry
Upon the pillars of the temple laid
His desperate hands, and in its overthrow
Destroyed himself, and with him those who made
A cruel mockery of his sightless woe ;
The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all,
Expired, and thousands perished in the fall !
There is a poor, blind Samson in this land,
Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel,
Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,
And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,
Till the vast Temple of our liberties
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 185
THE SLAVE'S DREAM.
BESIDE the ungathered rice he lay,
His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his Native Land.
Wide through the landscape of his dreams
The lordly Niger flowed ;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode ;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain-road.
He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
Among her children stand ;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
They held him by the hand !
A tear burst from the sleeper's lids,
And fell into the sand.
And then at furious speed he rode
Along the Niger's bank ;
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
And, with a martial clank,
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel
Smiting his stallion's flank.
1 86 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Before him, like a blood-red flag,
The bright flamingos flew ;
From morn to night he followed their flight,
O'er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,
And the ocean rose to view.
At night he heard the lion roar,
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream ;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.
The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty ;
And the blast of the Desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep, and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the driver's whip,
Nor the burning heat of day ;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away 1
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 187
JOHN GREENLEAF WH1TTIER.
18071892.
SONG OF THE FREE.
PRIDE of New England !
Soul of our fathers !
Shrink we all craven-like,
When the storm gathers?
What though the tempest be
Over us lowering,
Where's the New-Englander
Shamefully cowering?
Graves green and holy
Around us are lying,
Free were the sleepers all,
Living and dying !
Back with the Southerner's
Padlocks and scourges !
Go, let him fetter down
Ocean's free surges !
Go, let him silence
Winds, clouds, and waters, -
Never New England's own
Free sons and daughters !
1 88 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Free as our rivers are
Oceanward going,
Free as the breezes are
Over us blowing.
Up to our altars, then,
Haste we, and summon
Courage and loveliness,
Manhood and woman !
Deep let our pledges be :
Freedom for ever !
Truce with oppression
Never, oh, never !
By our own birthright gift,
Granted of Heaven,
Freedom for heart and lip,
Be the pledge given !
If we have whispered truth,
Whisper no longer !
Speak as the tempest does,
Sterner and stronger ;
Still be the tones of truth
Louder and firmer,
Startling the haughty South
With the deep murmur ;
God and our charter's right,
Freedom for ever !
Truce with oppression,
Never, oh, never !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 189
TO MASSACHUSETTS.
1844.
WHAT though around thee blazes
No fiery rallying sign ?
From all thy own high places,
Give heaven the light of thine !
What though unthrilled, unmoving,
The statesmen stand apart,
And comes no warm approving
From Mammon's crowded mart.
Still, let the land be shaken
By a summons of thine own !
By all save truth forsaken,
Why, stand with that alone !
Shrink not from strife unequal !
With the best is always hope ;
And ever in the sequel
God holds the right side up !
But when, with thine uniting,
Come voices long and loud,
And far-off hills are writing
Thy fire-words on the cloud ;
When from Penobscot's fountains
A deep response is heard,
And across the Western mountains
Rolls back thy rallying word;
SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Shall thy line of battle falter,
With its allies just in view ?
Oh, by hearth and holy altar,
My fatherland, be true !
Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom !
Speed them onward far and fast !
Over hill and valley speed them,
Like the sibyl's on the blast !
Lo ! the Empire State is shaking
The shackles from her hand ;
With the rugged North is waking
The level sunset land !
On they come, the free battalions !
East and West and North they come,
And the heart-beat of the millions
Is the beat of Freedom's drum.
" To the tyrant's plot no favour !
No heed to place-fed knaves !
Bar and bolt the door for ever
Against the land of slaves ! "
Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it,
The Heavens above us spread !
The land is roused, its spirit
Was sleeping, but not dead !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 191
CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.
[In the report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in
Charlestown, S.C., on the 4th of the ninth month, 1835, pub-
lished in the Courier of that city, it is stated, " The CLERGY
of all denominations attended in a body, LENDING THEIR SANC-
TION TO THE PROCEEDINGS, and adding by their presence to the
impressive character of the scene ! "]
JUST God ! and these are they
Who minister at Thine altar, God of Right !
Men who their hands with prayer and blessings lay
On Israel's Ark of light !
What ! preach and kidnap men ?
Give thanks, and rob Thy own afflicted poor?
Talk of Thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door ?
What ! servants of Thy own
Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
The homeless and the outcast, fettering down
The tasked and plundered slave !
Pilate and Herod, friends !
Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine !
Just God and holy ! is that church, which lends
Strength to the spoiler, Thine ?
Paid hypocrites, who turn
Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book
Of those high words of truth which search and burn
In warning and rebuke;
192 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Feed fat, ye locusts, feed !
And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord
That, from the toiling bondman's utter need,
Ye pile your own full board.
How long, O Lord ! how long
Shall such a priesthood barter truth away,
And in Thy name, for robbery and wrong
At Thy own altars pray ?
Is not Thy hand stretched forth
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite ?
Shall not the living God of all the earth,
And heaven above, do right ?
Woe, then, to all who grind
Their brethren of a common Father down !
To all who plunder from the immortal mind
Its bright and glorious crown !
Woe to the priesthood ! woe
To those whose hire is with the price of blood,
Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go,
The searching truths of God !
Their glory and their might
Shall perish ; and their very name shall be
Vile before all the people, in the light
Of a world's liberty.
Oh, speed the moment on
When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love
And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known
As in their home above.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 193
THE RENDITION,
1854.
I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call,
I saw an earnest look beseech,
And rather by that look than speech,
My neighbour told me all.
And, as I thought of Liberty
Marched handcuffed down that sworded street,
The solid earth beneath my feet
Reeled fluid as the sea.
I felt a sense of bitter loss,
Shame, tearless grief and stifling wrath,
And loathing fear, as if my path
A serpent stretched across.
All love of home, all pride of place,
All generous confidence and trust,
Sank smothering in that deep disgust
And anguish of disgrace.
Down on my native hills of June,
And home's green quiet, hiding all
Fell sudden darkness like the fall
Of midnight upon noon !
And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God
The blasphemy of wrong.
194 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
" Oh, Mother, from thy memories proud,
The old renown, dear Commonwealth,
Lend this dead air a breeze of health,
And smite with stars this cloud.
" Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,
Rise awful in thy strength," I said ;
Ah me ! I speak but to the dead ;
I stood upon her grave !
LAUS DEO !
ON HEARING THE BELLS RING ON THE PASSAGE
OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING
SLAVERY.
IT is done !
Clang of bell and roar of gun
Send the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel !
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to town !
Ring, O bells !
Every stroke exulting tells
Of the burial hour of crime.
Loud and long, that all may hear,
Ring for every listening ear
Of Eternity and Time !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 195
Let us kneel:
God's own voice is in that peal,
And this spot is holy ground.
Lord, forgive us ! What are we,
That our eyes this glory see,
That our ears have heard the sound !
For the Lord
On the whirlwind is abroad ;
In the earthquake He has spoken ;
He has smitten with His thunder
The iron wall asunder,
And the gates of brass are broken !
Loud and long
Lift the old exulting song ;
Sing with Miriam by the sea
He has cast the mighty down ;
Horse and rider sink and drown ;
" He hath triumphed gloriously ! "
Did we dare,
In our agony of prayer,
Ask for more than He has done ?
When was ever His right hand
Over any time or land
Stretched as now beneath the sun ?
How they pale,
Ancient myth and song and tale,
In this wonder of our days,
When the cruel rod of war
Blossoms white with righteous law,
And the wrath of man is praise !
196 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Blotted out !
All within and all about
Shall a fresher life begin ;
Freer breathe the universe
As it rolls its heavy curse
On the dead and buried sin !
It is done I
In the circuit of the sun
Shall the sound thereof go forth.
It shall bid the sad rejoice,
It shall give the dumb a voice,
It shall belt with joy the earth !
Ring and swing,
Bells of joy ! On morning's wing
Send the song of praise abroad !
With a sound of broken chains
Tell the nations that He reigns,
Who alone is Lord and God 1
SO1VGS OF FREEDOM. 197
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
18191891.
STANZAS ON FREEDOM.
MEN ! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave ?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed ?
Women ! who shall one day bear
Sons to breathe New England air,
If ye hear without a blush
Deeds to make the roused blood ra-\\
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains,
Answer ! are ye fit to be
Mothers of the brave and free ?
Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And with leathern hearts forget
That we owe mankind a debt ?
198 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
No ! true Freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And with heart and hand to be
Earnest to make others free !
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak ;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think ;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
THE FATHERLAND.
WHERE is the true man's fatherland ?
Is it where he by chance is born ?
Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned ?
Oh, yes ! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free !
Is it alone where freedom is,
Where God is God, and man is man ?
Doth he not claim a broader span
For the soul's love of home than this ?
Oh, yes ! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 199
Where'er a human heart doth wear
Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves,
Where'er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and fair,
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland !
Where'er a single slave doth pine,
Where'er one man may help another,
Thank God for such a birthright, brother,
That spot of earth is thine and mine !
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland !
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
IN a small chamber, friendless and unseen,
Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearn'd young man;
The place was dark, unfurnitured and mean
Yet there the freedom of a race began.
Help came but slowly; surely no man yet
Put lever to the heavy world with less;
What need of help? He knew how types were set,
He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.
Such earnest natures are the fiery pith,
The compact nucleus round which systems grow;
Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith,
And whirls impregnate with the central glow.
15
200 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
O Truth ! O Freedom ! how are ye still born
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed !
What humble hands unbar those gates of morn,
Through which the splendours of the new day burst
What ! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell,
Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown ?
Brave Luther answered, Yes ! that thunder's swell
Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown.
" Whatever can be known of earth, we know,"
Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curl'd;
No ! said one man in Genoa; and that No
Out of the dark created this New World.
Who is it will not dare himself to trust ?
Who is it hath not strength to stand alone ?
Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward must ?
He and his works like sand from earth are blown.
Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here !
See our straight-forward conscience put in pawn
To win a world ! See the obedient sphere
By bravery's simple gravitation drawn !
Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old,
And by the Present's lips repeated still
In our own single manhood to be bold,
Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will ?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 201
We stride the river daily at its spring,
Nor in our childish thoughtlessness foresee
What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring,
How like an equal it shall greet the sea !
O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain;
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong,
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain !
ON THE CAPTURE OF CERTAIN FUGITIVE
SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON.
LOOK on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can
The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man
truly man;
Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up with interest or
with ease
Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like
these !
I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy
brea c t
Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me
rest ;
And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the
tame,
Tis but my Bay-State dialect, our fathers spake the
same !
202 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone
To those who won our liberty, the heroes dead and gone,
While we look coldly on, and see law-shielded ruffians
slay
The men who fain would win their own, the heroes of
to-day !
Are we pledged to craven silence ? O fling it to the
wind,
The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human
kind
That makes us cringe and temporise, and dumbly stand at
rest,
While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the
breast !
Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler
duties first ;
The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed ;
Man is more than Constitutions ; better rot beneath the
sod,
Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly
false to God !
We owe allegiance to the State ; but deeper, truer, more,
To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's
core ;
Our country claims our fealty ; we grant it so, but then
Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.
He's true to God who's true to man ; wherever wrong is
done
To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-behold-
ing sun,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 203
That wrong is also done to us ; and they are slaves most
base,
Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their
race.
God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being
free
With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea.
Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be callous as ye
will,
From soul to soul o'er all the world leaps one electric
thrill.
Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep
apart,
With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from
heart :
When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay-State's iron
shore,
The word went forth that slavery should one day be no
more.
Out from the land of bondage, 'tis decreed our slaves
shall go,
And signs to us are offered, as erst to Pharaoh ;
If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel's of yore,
Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of
gore.
'Tis ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win
Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden it to
sin;
But if before his duty man with listless spirit stands,
Ere long the Great Avenger takes the work from out his
hands.
204 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THE PRESENT CRISIS.
WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad
earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to
west,
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within
him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full -blossomed on the thorny stem of
Time.
Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instan-
taneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to
and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognising start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips
apart,
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath
the Future's heart.
So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies
with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by
the sod,
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the
nobler clod.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 205
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears
along,
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right
or wrong ;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast
frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or
shame ;
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal
claim.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to
decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or
evil side ;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the
bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon
the right,
And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and
that light.
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I
track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns
not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation
learned
One new word of that grand credo which in prophet-
hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to
heaven upturned.
206 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
For Humanity sweeps onward ; where to-day the martyr
stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his
hands ;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling
faggots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.
'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves,
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a
crime ;
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by
men behind their time ?
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make
Plymouth rock sublime?
They were men of present valour, stalwart old inconoclasts,
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the
Past's ;
But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that
hath made us free,
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender
spirits flee
The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them
across the sea.
They have rights who dare maintain them; we are
traitors to our sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-
fires;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 207
Shall we make their creed our gaoler ? Shall we, in our
haste to slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral
lamps away
To light up the martyr-faggots round the prophets of to-
day ?
New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient
good uncouth ;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep
abreast of Truth ;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must
Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower^ and steer boldly through the
desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-
rusted key.
THE PIONEER.
WHAT man would live coffined with brick and stone,
Imprisoned from the influences of air,
And cramped with selfish land-marks everywhere,
When all before him stretches, furrowless and lone,
The unmapped prairie none can fence or own ?
What man would read and read the self-same faces,
And, like the marbles which the windmill grinds,
Rub smooth for ever with the same smooth minds,
This year retracing last year's, every year's, dull traces,
When there are woods and un- man-stifled places?
208 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
What man o'er one old thought would pore and pore,
Shut like a book between its covers thin,
For every fool to leave his dog's-ears in,
When solitude is his, and God for evermore,
Just for the opening of a paltry door ?
What man would watch life's oozy element
Creep Letheward for ever, when he might
Down some great river drift beyond men's sight,
To where the undethroned forest's royal tent
Broods with its hush o'er half a continent ?
What man with men would push and altercate,
Piecing out crooked means for crooked ends,
When he can have the skies and woods for friends,
Snatch back the rudder of his undismantled fate,
And in himself be ruler, church, and state ?
Cast leaves and feathers rot in last year's nest,
The winged brood, flown thence, new dwellings plan ;
The serf of his own Past is not a man ;
To change and change is life, to move and never rest ;
Not what we are, but what we hope, is best.
The wild, free woods make no man halt or blind ;
Cities rob men of eyes and hands and feet,
Patching one whole of many incomplete;
The general preys upon the individual mind,
And each alone is helpless as the wind.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 209
Each man is some man's servant ; every soul
Is by some other's presence quite discrowned ;
Each owes the next through all the imperfect round,
Yet not with mutual help; each man is his own goal,
And the whole earth must stop to pay his toll.
Here, life the undiminished man demands;
New faculties stretch out to meet new wants,
What Nature asks, that Nature also grants ;
Here man is lord, not drudge, of eyes and feet and hands,
And to his life is knit with hourly bands.
Come out, then, from the old thoughts and old ways,
Before you harden to a crystal cold
Which the new life can shatter, but not mould ;
Freedom for you still waits, still, looking backward, stay.s,
But widens still the irretrievable space.
210 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
EDMUND H. SEARS.
18101876.
[Unitarian pastor. Author of several volumes of poems.]
"OLD JOHN BROWN."
THEY call thee hot-brained, crazed, and mad ;
But every word that falls
Goes straight and true, and hits the mark
More sure than cannon-balls.
Through spectre forms of bogus law
It cuts its way complete ;
And judge and jury, too, are tried
At God's great judgment-seat.
Old man, farewell ! They'll take thy life ;
For dangerous enough,
In these our sweetly piping times,
Are men of hero stuff.
We should tread soft above the fires
That underneath us lie :
You'll crack the crust of compromise,
And set them spouting high.
Where Henry's cry for "Liberty"
Once sent its shivering thrill,
There's only room, six feet by two,
For heroes now to fill.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 211
And o'er the spot the years will roll,
As spring its verdure weaves,
And autumn o'er the felon's grave
Shakes down its yellow leaves.
But not the spot six feet by two
Will hold a man like thee ;
John Brown will tramp the shaking earth
From Blue Ridge to the sea,
Till the strong angel comes at last
And opes each dungeon door,
And God's Great Charter holds, and waves
O'er all his humble poor.
And then the humble poor will come
In that far distant day,
And from the felon's nameless grave
They'll brush the leaves away ;
And grey old men will point the spot
Beneath the pine-tree shade,
As children ask with streaming eyes
Where Old John Brown was laid.
212 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JOHN KELLS INGRAM.
Born 1823.
THE MEN OF 'NINETY-EIGHT.
WHO fears to speak of Ninety- Eight ?
Who blushes at the name?
When cowards mock the patriot's fate,
Who hangs his head for shame ?
He's all a knave, or half a slave,
Who slights his country thus ;
But a true man, like you, man,
Will fill your glass with us.
We drink the memory of the brave,
The faithful and the few ;
Some lie far off beyond the wave,
Some sleep in Ireland, too ;
All all are gone, but still lives on
The fame of those who died ;
All true men, like you, men,
Remember them with pride.
Some on the shores of distant lands
Their weary hearts have laid,
And by the stranger's heedless hands
Their lonely graves were made ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 21;
But though their clay be far away
Beyond the Atlantic foam,
In true men, like you, men,
Their spirit's still at home.
The dust of some is Irish earth;
Among their own they rest;
And the same land that gave them birth
Has caught them to her breast ;
And we will pray that from their clay
Full many a race may start
Of true men, like you, men,
To act as brave a part.
They rose in dark and evil days
To right their native land ;
They kindled here a living blaze
That nothing shall withstand.
Alas ! that Might can vanquish Right
They fell and pass'd away ;
But true men, like you, men,
Are plenty here to-day.
Then here's their memory may it be
For us a guiding light,
To cheer our strife for liberty,
And teach us to unite.
Through good and ill, be Ireland's still,
Though sad as theirs your fate;
And true men be you, men,
Like those of 'Ninety-Eight.
214 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THOMAS OSBORNE DA VIS.
18141845.
[The most brilliant and popular of the poetical contributors
to the Nation. His poems were collected and published in
1846.]
A NATION ONCE AGAIN.
WHEN boyhood's fire was in my blood,
I read of ancient freemen,
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
Three hundred men and three men :
And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again.
And from that time, through wildest woe,
That hope has shone, a far light ;
Nor could love's brightest summer-glow
Outshine that solemn starlight :
It seemed to watch above my head
In forum, field, and fane ;
Its angel voice sang round my bed,
" A Nation once again."
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 21
It whispered, too, that " freedom's ark,
And service high and holy,
Would be profaned by feelings dark
And passions vain or lowly :
For freedom comes from God's right hand,
And needs a godly train ;
And righteous men must make our land
A Nation once again."
So, as I grew from boy to man
I bent me to that bidding
My spirit of each selfish plan
And cruel passion ridding;
For thus I hoped some day to aid
Oh, can such hope be vain ?
When my dear country shall be made
A Nation once again.
NATIVE SWORDS.
A VOLUNTEER SONG 1ST JULY 1-792.
WE'VE bent too long to braggart wrong,
While force our prayers derided;
We've fought too long, ourselves among,
By knaves and priests divided ;
16
216 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
United now, no more we'll bow;
Foul faction, we discard it ;
And now, thank God ! our native sod
Has Native Swords to guard it.
Like rivers which o'er valleys rich
Bring ruin in their water,
On native land a native hand
Flung foreign fraud and slaughter.
From Dermod's crime to Tudor's time
Our clans were our perdition ;
Religion's name, since then, became
Our pretext for division.
But worse than all, with Lim'rick's fall
Our valour seemed to perish;
Or, o'er the main, in France and Spain,
For bootless vengeance flourish.
The peasant, here, grew pale for fear
He'd suffer for our glory,
While France sung joy for Fontenoy,
And Europe hymned our story.
Y>
But now no clan, nor factious plan,
The east and west can sunder
Why Ulster e'er should Munster fear
Can only wake our wonder.
Religion's crost, when union's lost,
And " royal gifts " retard it;
And now, thank God, our native sod
Has Native Swords to guard it.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 217
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED.
FULL often, when our fathers saw the Red above the
Green,
They rose in rude but fierce array, with sabre, pike, and
skian,
And over many a noble town, and many a field of dead,
They proudly set the Irish Green above the English
Red.
But in the end, throughout the land, the shameful sight
was seen
The English Red in triumph high above the Irish Green ;
But well they died in breach and field, who, as their
spirits fled,
Still saw the Green maintain its place above the English
Red.
And they who saw, in after times, the Red above the
Green,
Were withered as the grass that dies beneath a forest
screen ;
Yet often by this healthy hope their sinking hearts were
fed,
That, in some day to come, the Green should flutter o'er
the Red.
Sure 'twas for this Lord Edward died, and Wolfe Tone
sunk serene
Because they could not bear to leave the Red above the
Green;
218 SONGS OF FREEDOM
And 'twas for this that Owen fought, and Sarsfiekl nobly
bled
Because their eyes were hot to see the Green above the
Red.
So, when the strife began again, our darling Irish Green
Was down upon the earth, while high the English Red
was seen ;
Yet still we held our fearless course, for something in us
said,
"Before the strife is o'er you'll see the Green above the
Red."
And 'tis for this we think and toil, and knowledge strive
to glean,
That we may pull the English Red below the Irish
Green,
And leave our sons sweet Liberty, and smiling plenty
spread
Above the land once dark with blood the Green above
the Red.
The jealous English tyrant now has banned the Irish
Green,
And forced us to conceal it like a something foul and
mean ;
And yet, by heavens ! he'll sooner raise his victims from
the dead,
Than force our hearts to leave the Green and cotton to
the Red !
We'll trust ourselves, for God is good, and blesses those
who lean
On their brave hearts, and not upon an earthly king or
queen ;
SOsVGS OF FREEDOM. 219
And freely, as we lift our hands, we vow our blood to
shed,
Once and for evermore to raise the Green above the
Red!
A SONG FOR THE IRISH MILITIA.
THE tribune's tongue and poet's pen
May sow the seed in prostrate men ;
But 'tis the soldier's sword alone
Can reap the crop so bravely sown !
No more I'll sing nor idly pine,
But train my soul to lead a line
A soldier's life's the life for me,
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free.
No foe would fear your thunder words,
If 'twere not for our lightning swords
If tyrants yield when millions pray,
'Tis lest they link in war array;
Nor peace itself is safe, but when
The sword is sheathed by fighting men.
The rifle brown and sabre bright
Can freely <-peak and nobly write
What prophets preached the truth so well
As Hofer, Brian, Bruce, and Tell ?
God guard the creed these heroes taught,
That blood-bought Freedom's cheaply bought.
220 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Then welcome be the bivouac,
The hardy stand, and fierce attack,
Where pikes will tame their carbineers,
And rifles thin their bay'neteers,
And every field, the island through,
Will show "what Irishmen can do."
Yet, 'tis not strength, and 'tis not steel
Alone can make the English reel;
But wisdom, working day by day,
Till come's the time for passion's sway
The patient dint, and powder shock,
Can blast an empire like a rock.
A soldier's life's the life for me,
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 221
DE JEAN FRASER.
18091849.
[An Irish cabinet-maker, called "the poet of the workshop."
Wrote under the title of " J. de Jean."]
THE. PRISONER AT THE BAR.
'Tis a jest to ask me why
For my deeds I should not die;
I appeal, for my reply,
To your thongs !
To my corn beneath the hoof !
To the flame-flag from my roof!
Do ye want more maddening proof
Of my wrongs ?
Honest men, before my eyes,
Have been tortured into lies;
And ye bought from perjured spies
Priceless blood.
Ye corrupted and debased,
Ye inveigled, trapped, and chased,
Ye o'erswept, deformed, defaced
Like a flood.
222 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The loftiest, or the least
In the fight, or when it ceased;
The fair virgin, or the priest,
Did ye spare ?
Till now, by force and fraud,
Human feeling is outlawed,
And oppression stalks abroad,
Bold and bare.
Ye plunderers of our plains !
Ye exhausters of our veins,
Ye firers of our fanes,
If /be
(For resistance when ye trod
Flesh and spirit as the clod)
A dark Felon before God,
What are ye ?
If some tyrant's blood I spilt,
On the tyrant is the guilt;
If I met him hilt to hilt
For my own :
And free me from this chain
I will dare you thus again,
Though you gird with cannon train
Me alone.
And this persisting zeal,
Which all trampled men must feel,
Will defy your fire and steel,
Till ye yield
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 223
The plunder ye have gained,
And the captives ye have chained,
To a host perchance untrained
To the field.
Though my fate be in your hands,
With my life's fast-falling sands,
1 will lay my stern commands
On my son ;
By the honour of his wife,
By his fame in death or life,
To be faithful to this strife,
Till 'tis woa !
224 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN.
1803-1849.
[An Irish Nationalist poet, of wayward eccentric genius. 1
SOUL AND COUNTRY.
ARISE, my slumbering soul, arise !
And learn what yet remains for thee
To dree or do !
The signs are flaming in the skies;
A struggling world would yet be free,
And live anew.
The earthquake hath not yet been born,
That soon shall rock the lands around,
Beneath their base.
Immortal Freedom's thunder-horn,
As yet, yields but a doleful sound
To Europe's race.
Look round, my soul, and say and see
If those about thee understand
Their mission here;
The will to smite, the power to slay,
Abound in every heart and hand,
A f ar, anear.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 225
But, God ! must yet the conqueror's sword
Pierce mind, as heart, in this proud year ?
Oh, dream it not !
It sounds a false blaspheming word,
Begot and born of moral fear
And ill-begot !
To leave the world a name is nought;
To leave a name for glorious deeds
And works of love,
A name to waken lightning thought,
And fire the soul of him who reads
This tells above.
Napoleon sinks to-day before
The ungilded shrine, the single soul
Of Washington;
Truth's name, alone, shall man adore,
Long as the waves of time shall roll
Henceforward on !
My countrymen ! my words are weak,
My health is gone, my soul is dark,
My heart is chill
Yet would I fain and fondly seek
To see you borne in Freedom's bark
O'er ocean still.
Beseech your God, and bide your hour;
He cannot, will not, long be dumb;
Even now his tread
Is heard o'er earth with coming power;
And coming, trust me, it will come,
Else were he dead !
226 SOA'GS OF FREEDOM.
A HIGHWAY FOR FREEDOM.
" MY suffering country shall be freed,
And shine with tenfold glory ! "
So spake the gallant Winkelried,
Renowned in German story.
" No tyrant, even of kingly grade,
Shall cross or darken my way !"
Out flashed his blade, and so he made
For Freedom's course a highway !
We want a man like this, with power
To rouse the world by one word ;
We want a chief to meet the hour,
And march the masses onward.
But chief or none, through blood and fire,
My fatherland lies thy way !
The men must fight who dare desire
For Freedom's course a highway 1
Alas ! I can but idly gaze
Around in grief and wonder ;
The people's will alone can raise
The people's shout of thunder.
Too long, my friends, you faint for feat
In secret crypt and by-way;
At last be men ! Stand forth and clear
For Freedom's course a highway !
SOA'GS OF FREEDOM. 22;
You intersect wood, lea, and lawn,
With roads for monster waggons,
Wherein you speed like lightning, drawn
By fiery iron dragons.
So do. Such work is good, no doubt;
But why not seek some nigh way
For mind as well ? Path also out
For Freedom's course a highway.
Yes, up ! and let your weapons be
Sharp steel and self-reliance !
Why waste your burning energy
In void and vain defiance,
And phrases fierce but fugitive ?
'Tis deeds, not words, that / weigh
Your swords and guns alone can give
To Freedom's course a highway !
AN INVITATION.
FRIENDS to Freedom ! is't not time
That your course were shaped at length ?
Wherefore stand ye loitering here ?
Seek some healthier, holier clime,
Where your souls may grow in strength,
And whence Love has exiled Fear !
228 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Europe Southron, Saxon, Celt-
Sits alone, in tattered robe.
In our days she burns with none
Of the lightning-life she felt,
When Rome shook the troubled globe,
Twenty centuries agone.
Deutschland sleeps; her star hath waned.
France, the thunderess whilome, now
Singeth small with bated breath.
Spain is bleeding, Poland chained ;
Italy can but groan and vow.
England lieth sick to death.
Cross with me the Atlantic's foam,
And your genuine goal is won.
Purely Freedom's breezes blow,
Merrily Freedom's children roam
By the dcedal Amazon
And the glorious Ohio.
Thither take not gems and gold.
Nought from Europe's robber-hoards
Must profane the Western Zones.
Thither take ye spirits bold,
Thither take ye ploughs and swords,
And your father's buried bones.
Come ! if Liberty's true fires
Burn within your bosoms, come !
If ye would that in your graves
Your free sons should bless their sires,
Make the far green West your home,
Cross with me the Atlantic's waves !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 229
TJ7OMAS UARCY MCGEE.
18251868.
[One of the editors of the Nation, 1842. Escaped to America
in 1848, where he became well known as a journalist ; was
elected a member of the Canadian Parliament, and assassinated
in 1868.]
THE REAPERS' SONG.
THE August sun is setting
Like a fire behind the hills
'Twill rise again to see us free
Of life or of its ills ;
For what is life but deadly strife
That knows no truce or pause ?
And what is death but want of breath
To curse their alien laws ?
Then a-shearing let us go, my boys,
A-shearing let us go;
On our own soil 'twill be no toil
To lay the corn low.
The harvest that is growing
Was given us by God
Praise be to Him, the sun and shower
Work'd for us at his nod.
The lords of earth, in gold and mirth,
Ride on their ancient way,
But could their smile have clothed the isle
In such delight to-day?
230 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
" How will you go a-shearing,
Dear friends and neighbours all ? "
"Oh, we will go with pike and gun
To have our own or fall;
We'll stack our arms and stack our corn
Upon the same wide plain;
We'll plant a guard in barn and yard,
And give them grape for grain."
God speed ye, gallant shearers,
May your courage never fail,
May you thrash your foes, and send the chaff
To England on the gale !
May you have a glorious harvest-home,
Whether I'm alive or no;
Your corn grows here the foe comes there
Or it or he must go.
Then a-shearing let us go, my boys,
A-shearing we will go;
On our own soil 'twill be no toil
To cut the corn low.
THE PILGRIMS OF LIBERTY.
BESIDE a river that I know, shrined in a laurel grove,
I see my idol Liberty, that wears the smile of Love ;
Her face is toward the city, four paths are at her feet,
They bear her hymns from the four winds as rays
converging meet.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 231
By the four paths I see approach my idol's votaries :
Those from the highlands of the West, from Northern
valleys these ;
From Shannon shore and Slaney side yon other pilgrims
throng :
Oh 1 wild around my idol's shrine will surge their
mingled song.
And thither wends that wounded man, who bears the
muffled sword
Once borne by the comrade true his kindred heart
adored ;
The sacred stains upon the blade are drops of tyrant
blood :
lie brings it now to Freedom's shrine, as loyal comrades
should.
And thither wends the widow, with her fair son at her
side,
The banneret, whose eye is wet beneath his brow of
pride ;
The sable crape around the staff his father bore is
roll'd
The shining Sun across the Green flings many a ray of
gold.
The maiden with the funeral urn close gathered to her
breast
Goes thither to give up the heart she loved on earth the
best ;
She girt his sword and gave him for Ireland's holy
fight-
And once again to Liberty, Love yields her equal right.
17
232 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The Artist, with his battle piece the Poet, with his
song
The Student with his glowing heart, pour to the shrine
along,
Where Liberty, my idol, sits on a shrine like snow,
By a gliding river that I love, near a city that I know.
Oh, long around my idol's throne may bloom the laurel
trees,
The ever green and ever glad, they laugh at blight and
breeze
True children of our hardy clime, long may they there be
seen
Like our nation's banners folded, as deathless and as
green.
Oh, long may the four pathways join beneath my idol's
feet,
And long may Ireland's mingled men before her altar
meet ;
Oh, long may man and maid and youth go votaries to the
grove
Where reigns my idol, Liberty, that wears the smile of
Love.
UNION IS STRENGTH.
A MAN whose corn was carried away
Before his eyes, and whose oats and hay
Were piled up into the landlord's cart,
Look'd toward his castle with sorrowful heart.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 233
" You seem," said he, "so strong and grand,
Like a giant you overlook the land ;
And a giant in stomach you sure must be,
That of all my crop can leave none to me."
Quoth another " Of such weak words what end ?
Have you any hope that the devil will mend,
Or the wolf let the kid escape his maw,
Or a landlord yield his rights at law ?
" Let us go over to Rackrent Hall
By twos and threes it may befall,
As wisdom is found in the multitude,
Enough of us might do the cause some good."
At first they went by twos and threes,
But Rackrent's lord they could not please;
And next they went in number a score,
But the case was even the same as before.
By fifties and hundreds they gather'd then,
Resolute, patient, dogged men,
And the landlord own'd that he thought there was
Some slight defect in the present laws.
A barony spoke a country woke
A nation struck at their feudal yoke
'Twas found the Right could not be withstood,
And wisdom was found in the multitude !
234 SONGS OF FREEDOM,
THE GATHERING OF THE NATIONS.
GATHER together the nations ! proclaim the war to all :
Armour and sword are girding in palace, tower, and
hall ;
The kings of the earth are donning their feudal mail
again
Gather together the nations ! arouse and arm the men.
Who cometh out of the North? 'Tis Russia's mighty
Czar;
With giant hand he pointeth to a never-setting star ;
The Cossack springs from his couch the Tartar leaves
his den !
Ho ! herald souls of Europe, arouse and arm the men.
What does the Frank at Rome, with the Russian at the
Rhine ?
And Albion, pallid as her cliffs, shows neither soul nor
sign;
Pope Pius sickeneth daily, in the foul Sicilian fen -
Ho ! wardens of the world's strongholds, arouse and arm
the men.
The future circleth nearer on its grey portentous wings,
Pale are the cheeks of princes, and sore afraid are
kings !
Once faced by the furious nations, they'll flee in fear,
and then,
By the right divine of the fittest, we shall have the reign
of Men.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 235
RICHARD D ALTON WILLIAMS.
18221862.
[One of the poets and patriots of the Young Ireland move-
ment, and a contributor to the Nation. He emigrated to
America in 1851.]
THE PATRIOT BRAVE.
I DRINK to the valiant who combat
For freedom by mountain or wave ;
And may triumph attend, like a shadow,
The sword of the patriot brave !
Oh, never was holier chalice
Than this at our festivals crowned
The heroes of Morven to pledge it,
And gods of Valhalla, float round.
Hurrah for the patriot brave !
A health to the patriot brave !
And a curse and a blow be to liberty's foe,
Whether tyrant, or coward, or knave.
O Liberty, hearts that adore thee
Pour out their best blood at thy shrine,
As freely as gushes before thee
This purple libation of wine.
For us, whether destined to triumph,
Or bleed as Leonidas bled,
Crushed down by a forest of lances
On mountains of foreigner dead
May we sleep with the patriot brave !
God prosper the patriot brave !
But may battle and woe hurry liberty's foe
To a bloody and honourless grave 1
236 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
"SLIABH CUILINN."
[The spirited poems published in the Nation, under the nom-
de-plume of "Sliabh Cuilinn," are generally attributed to John
O'Hagan, the late Judge.]
PADDIES EVERMORE.
THE hour is past to fawn or crouch
As suppliants for our right ;
Let word and deed unshrinking vouch
The banded millions' might :
Let them who scorned the fountain rill,
Now dread the torrent's roar,
And hear our echoed chorus still,
We're Paddies evermore.
Look round the Frenchman governs France,
The Spaniard rules in Spain,
The gallant Pole but waits his chance
To break the Russian chain ;
The strife for Freedom here begun
We never will give o'er,
Nor own a land on earth but one
We're Paddies evermore.
What reck we though six hundred years
Have o'er our thraldom rolled,
The soul that roused O'Conor's spears
Still lives as true and bold ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 237
The tide of foreign power to stem
Our fathers bled of yore,
And here we stand to-day, like them,
True Paddies evermore.
Where's our allegiance? With the land
For which they nobly died ;
Our duty? By our cause to stand,
Whatever chance betide ;
Our cherished hope ? To heal the woes
That rankle at her core ;
Our scorn and hatred? To her foes,
Like Paddies evermore.
PART III
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 241
( c
WALT WHITMAN.
18191892.
FOR YOU, O DEMOCRACY."
COME, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone
upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the
rivers of America, and along the shores of the great
lakes, and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each
other's necks,
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma
femme !
For you, for you I am trilling these songs.
242 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
EUROPE.
The seventy-second and seventy-third years of these States.
(1848, 1849.)
SUDDENLY, out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of
slaves,
Like lightning it le'pt forth half startled at itself,
Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to
the throats of kings.
O hope and faith !
O aching close of exiled patriots' lives !
O many a sicken'd heart !
Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh.
And you, paid to defile the People you liars, mark !
Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,
For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming
from his simplicity the poor man's wages,
For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and
laugh'd at in the breaking,
Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike
revenge, or the heads of the nobles fall ;
The People scorn'd the ferocity of kings.
But the sweetness of mercy brew'd bitter destruction,
and the frighten'd monarchs come back,
Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-
gatherer,
Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 243
Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape,
Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and
form, in scarlet folds,
Whose face and eyes none may see,
Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the
arm,
One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the
head of a snake appears.
Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody
corpses of young men,
The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of
princes are flying, the creatures of power laugh
aloud,
And all these things bear fruits, and they are good.
Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbet, those hearts
pierc'd by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with
unslaughter'd vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings !
They live in brothers again ready to defy you,
They were purified by death, they were taught and
exalted.
Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom but grows seed
for freedom, in its turn to bear seed,
Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains
and the snows nourish.
244 SONGS OF FREEDOM,
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let
loose,
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counsel-
ing, cautioning.
Liberty, let others despair of you I never despair of
you.
Is the house shut ? is the master away ?
Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching,
He will soon return, his messengers come anon.
TO A FOIL'D EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONAIRE.
COURAGE yet, my brother or my sister !
Keep on Liberty is to be subserv'd whatever occurs ;
That is nothing that is quell'd by one or two failures, or
any number of failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by
any unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon,
penal statutes.
What we believe in waits latent forever through all the
continents,
Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and
light, is positive and composed, knows no dis-
couragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 245
(Not songs of loyalty alone are these,
But songs of insurrection also,
For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the
world over,
And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind
him,
And stakes his life to be lost at any moment.)
The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent
advance and retreat,
The infidel triumphs, or supposes he triumphs,
The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace,
and lead-balls do their work,
The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
The great speakers and writers are exiled, they lie sick in
distant lands,
The cause is asleep, the strongest throats are choked with
their own blood,
The young men droop their eyelashes towards the ground
when they meet ;
But for all this Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor
the infidel enter'd into full possession.
When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go,
nor the second or third to go,
It waits for all the rest to go, it is the last.
When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,
And when all life and all the souls of men and women
are discharged from any part of the earth,
Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged
from that part of the earth,
And the infidel come into full possession.
Then courage, European revolter, revoltress !
For till all ceases neither must you cease.
246 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I
am for myself, nor what anything is for,)
But I will search carefully for it even in being foil'd,
In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment for
they too are great.
Did we think victory great ?
So it is but now it seems to me, when it cannot be
help'd, that defeat is great,
And that death and dismay are great.
RISE, O DAYS, FROM YOUR FATHOMLESS
DEEPS.
I.
RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier,
fiercer sweep !
Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour'd what
the earth gave me,
Long I roam'd the woods of the north, long I watch'd
Niagara pouring,
I travel'd the prairies over and slept on their breast, I
cross'd the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus,
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd
out to sea,
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm,
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves,
I raark'd the white combs where they career'd so high,
curling over,
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 247
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb, O
wild as my heart, and powerful !)
Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow'd after the
lightning,
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as
sudden and fast amid the din they chased each other
across the sky ;
These, and such as these, I, elate, saw saw with
wonder, yet pensive and masterful,
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,
Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.
II.
'Twas well, O soul 'twas a good preparation you gave
me,
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea
never gave us,
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the
mightier cities,
Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara
pouring,
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the North-west, are
you indeed inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were
those storms of the mountain and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day, was the
sea risen ?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black
clouds ?
Lo ! from deeps more unfathomable, something more
deadly and savage,
18
248 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front Cin-
cinnati, Chicago, unchain'd ;
What was that swell I saw on the ocean ? behold what
comes here,
How it climbs with daring feet and hands how it
dashes I
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning how
bright the flashes of lightning !
How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on,
shown through the dark by those flashes of lightning !
(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard
through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion,)
ill.
Thunder on ! stride on, Democracy ! strike with vengeful
stroke !
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities !
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms ! you have done me
good,
My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal
strong nutriment,
Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads through
farms, only half satisfied,
One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl'd on
the ground before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft,
ironically hissing low ;
The cities I loved so well I abandon'd and left, I sped to
the certainties suitable to me,
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and
Nature's dauntlessness,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 249
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only,
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire on the water
and air I waited long ;
But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am
glutted,
I have witness'd the true lightning, I have witness'd my
cities electric,
I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike
America rise,
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary
wilds,
No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.
TURN, O LIBERTAD.
TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over,
From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more,
resolute, sweeping the world,
Turn from lands retrospective recording proofs of the
past,
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past,
From the chants of the feudal world, the triumphs of
kings, slavery, caste,
Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv'd and to come
give up that backward world,
Leave to the singers of hitherto, give them the trailing
past,
But what remains, remains for singers for you wars to
come are for you,
(Lo, how the wars of the past have duly inured to you,
and the wars of the present also inure ;)
250 SONGS OF FXEEDOM.
Then turn, and be not alarm'd, O Libertad turn your
undying face,
To where the future, greater than all the 'past,
Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.
THE GREAT CITY.
A GREAT city is that which has the greatest men and
women,
If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the
whole world.
The place where a great city stands is not the place of
stretch'd wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of
produce merely,
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers, or the
anchor-lifters of the departing,
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or
shops selling goods from the rest of the earth,
Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the
place where money is plentiest,
Nor the place of the most numerous population.
Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators
and bards,
Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves
them in return and understands them,
Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common
words and deeds,
Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 251
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases,
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending
audacity of elected persons,
Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the
whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript
waves,
Where outside authority enters always after the pre-
cedence of inside authority,
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and
President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are
agents for pay,
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and
to depend on themselves,
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,
Where women walk in public processions in the streets
the same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the
same as the men ;
Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
There the great city stands.
252 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
W. C. BENNETT.
THE SLAVER'S WRECK.
A HINT TO CERTAIN EMPERORS.
Ho ! godless madmen at the helm,
Ho ! slavers on the deck,
Your bark the waves will overwhelm,
Your curst ship goes to wreck;
So let it be; ship sea on sea;
Right through the breakers go ;
The rocks that wreck you will but free
Your prison'd slaves below.
God-doom'd, your onward course you shape
With all the skill you can ;
His vengeance long you will not 'scape,
Foul fetterers of man !
Godless, accurst right plain we see
You to destruction go ;
Who cares ? The rocks that wreck you free
Your prison'd slaves below.
Hark ! madmen, through the thickening gloom
I hear the surf's deep roar ;
How fast, all reckless of your doom,
You drive towards the shore.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 253
Ho ! breakers left and right I see,
Ahead they're white as snow.
Who cares ? The rocks that wreck you free
Your prison'd slaves below.
Ah ! did you care my course to try,
You might at danger scoff;
Your bondsmen's help with freedom buy;
Quick ! strike their fetters off !
But, while they're slaves, no help they'll be :
Too well, ere this, they know
The rocks that wreck their masters free
Their prison'd slaves below.
1856.
THE RIGHT ABOVE THE WRONG.
THE HOPE OF THE PEOPLE.
I HEAR them say, " By all this stir
What do the people gain ?
Their despots' slaves of old they were,
Their slaves they still remain."
But God will right the people yet,
Although the struggle's long ;
Yes, friends, we've faith that God will set
The right above the wrong.
" See France," they say, " what has she won
By all her bloody past ?
She ends the same as she begun,
A tyrant's toy at last."
254 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Yet Heaven her woe will not forget,
She'll up again ere long;
For her we've faith that God will set
The right above the wrong.
" No more your Hungary's battle-peals
O'er listening Europe roll ;
Securely gagg'd and chain'd, she feels
The iron in her soul."
Does she her battle-fields forget,
Triumphant once so long?
She waits for her, too, God will set
The right above the wrong.
' ' Milan, too, rose in 'forty-eight,
And tore her chains away,
To curse again her children's fate
The Austrian's scorn to-day."
Her three days she remembers yet,
And still her hope is strong,
Ere long her God for her will set
The right above the wrong.
" Look, at its triple despot's feet,
Their victim, Poland, lies ;
Who knows if still its free heart beat,
Or heeds its dying cries ? "
Ah ! God its cries will not forget ;
Though Poland suffer long,
We've faith that God for her will set
The right above the wrong.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 255
Yes ; gagg'd and chain'd the nations lie,
And wrong and vengeance reign;
To God goes up the bitter cry
That will not rise in vain.
The people watch, and wait, and let
Their living hope be strong
Who doubts but God at last will set
The right above the wrong ?
1867.
256 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JAMES THOMSON (". K"
1837-1882.
THE AWAKENING OF ITALY.
(FROM "THE DEAD YEAR," 1861.)
A NATION long was trodden in the dust
'Neath various and discordant tyrannies,
Until it seemed embruted to the lust
Of its base despots, mortgaging for these
The priceless fame of olden centuries ;
And, like the wretchedest of Circe's swine,
Drugging its all-sick soul with sensual wine.
This nation is aroused from shore to shore ;
The drunken lethargy is passed away,
The drunken frenzies vex its soul no more.
The night is gone; the sullen lingering grey
Consumes in fires of the advancing day,
Whose crimson dawn shall have an azure noon :
This people rise, to labour for its boon.
The dreamer graspeth firmly Action's sword ;
The coward plunges smiling down the grave,
To drag down with him tyranny abhorred ;
The meanest miser and self-seeking knave
Give all up for their country ; the poor slave
Of superstition dares to see the truth;
The long oppressed is full of gentle ruth.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 257
Whence hath been poured this great electric thrill,
Of God-like power to quicken every stone
With life and soul, with hope and strength and will ?-
Throughout that air, long filled with hopeless moan,
A living Voice was heard supreme and lone,
Calm as the heavens and mighty as the sea,
Arise, arise, Italia^ one and free !
....
How has such fruit by such a year been borne ?
How has this Italy, in sheer despite
Of foes whose legions laughed her arms to scorn,
Of friends as false in heart as great in might,
Of statesmen plotting wrongs to help the right,
Of Europe selfish, of herself distract,
Brought out her grand idea into fact ?
She has two noble sons ; by these she is.
The Thinker;* who, inspired from earliest youth,
In want and pain, in exile's miseries,
'Mid alien scorn, 'mid foes that knew not ruth,
Has ever preached his spirit's inmost truth ;
Though friends waxed cold or turned their love to
hate,
Though even now his country is ingrate.
The Doer,t whose high fame as purely shines
As his, whoj heretofore Sicilia won
With victories flowing free as Homer's lines.
Sublime in action when the strife is on,
Sublime in pity when the strife is done ;
A pure and lofty spirit, blest from sight
Of meaner nature's selfishness and spite.
* Mazzini. t Garibaldi. t Timoleon.
258 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Therefore, O Fathers, my best symbol see,
Noble in meanness, rent and stained with gore
To future Romans this Red Shirt shall be
As was that Leathern Apron* borne of yore
To all the glittering pomp of Persian war.
If any hope despite the Past may be,
Italia shall be one, great, glorious, free !
A POLISH INSURGENT.
WHAT would you have? said I;
'Tis so easy to go and die,
'Tis so hard to stay and live,
In this alien peace and this comfort callous,
Where only the murderers get the gallows,
Where the jails are for rogues who thieve.
'Tis so easy to go and die,
Where our Country, our Mother, the Martyr,
Moaning in bonds doth lie,
Bleeding with stabs in her breast,
Her throat with a foul clutch prest,
Under the thrice-accursed Tartar.
But Smith, your man of sense,
Ruddy, and broad, and round like so !
Kindly, but dense, but dense,
* The famous Apron of Gavah the Smith, which Feridoon
adopted for the banner of Iran.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 259
Said to me : " Do not go :
It is hopeless ; right is wrong;
The tyrant is too strong."
Must a man have hope to fight ?
Can a man not fight in despair ?
Must the soul cower down for the body's weakness,
And slaver the devil's hoof with meekness,
Nor care nor dare to share
Certain defeat with the right ?
They do not know us, my Mother !
They know not our love, our hate !
And how we would die with each other,
Embracing proud and elate,
Rather than live apart
In peace with shame in the heart.
No hope ! If a heavy anger
Our God hath treasured against us long,
His lightning-shafts from his thunder-clangour
Raining a century down :
We have loved when we went most wrong ;
He cannot for ever frown.
No hope ! We can haste to be killed,
That the tale of the victims get filled ;
The more of the debt we pay,
The less on our sons shall weigh :
This star through the baleful rack of the cope
Burns red ; red is our hope.
260 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
O our Mother, thou art noble and fair !
Fair and proud and chaste, thou Queen !
Chained and stabbed in the breast,
Thy throat with a foul clutch prest ;
Yet around thee how coarse, how mean,
Are these rich shopwives who stare !
Art thou moaning, O our Mother, through the
swoon
Of thine agony of desolation ?
" Do my sons still love me? or can they stand
Gazing afar from a foreign land,
Loving more peace and gold the boon
Of a people strange, of a sordid nation ? "
O our Mother, moan not thus !
We love you as you love us,
And our hearts are wild with thy sorrow:
If we cannot save thee, we are blest
Who can die on thy sacred bleeding breast.
So we left Smith- Land on the morrow,
And we hasten across the West.
DESPOTISM TEMPERED BY DYNAMITE*
THERE is no other title in the world
So proud as mine, who am no law-cramped king,
No mere imperial monarch absolute,
The WHITE TSAR worshipped as a visible God,
As Lord of Heaven no less than Lord of Earth
I look with terror to my crowning day.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 261
Through half of Europe my dominions spread,
And then through half of Asia to the shores
Of Earth's great ocean washing the New World ;
And nothing bounds them to the Northern Pole,
They merge into the everlasting ice
I look with terror to my crowning day.
Full eighty million subjects worship me
Their father, high priest, monarch, God on earth ;
My children who but hold their lives with mine
For our most Holy Russia dear and great,
Whose might is concentrated in my hands
I look with terror to my crowning day.
I chain and gag with chains and gags of iron
The impious hands and mouths that dare express
A word against my sacred sovereignty ;
The half of Asia is my prison-house,
Myriads of convicts lost in its Immense
I look with terror to my crowning day.
I cannot chain and gag the evil thoughts
Of men and women poisoned by the West,
Frenzied in soul by the anarchic West ;
These thoughts transmute themselves to dynamite ;
My sire was borne all shattered to his tomb
I look with terror to my crowning day.
My peasants rise to their unvarying toil,
And go to sleep outwearied by their toil,
Without the hope of any better life.
But with no hope they have no deadly fear,
They sleep and eat their scanty food in peace
I look with terror to my crowning day.
262 SOA'GS OF FREEDOM.
My palaces are prisons to myself;
I taste no food that may not poison me ;
I plant no footstep sure it will not stir
Instant destruction of explosive fire ;
I look with terror to each day and night
With tenfold terror to my crowning day.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 263
JOAQUIN MILLER.
SOPHIE PEROVSKAYA.
TO THE CZAR.
DOWN from her high estate she stept,
A maiden, gently born,
And by the icy Volga kept
Sad watch, and waited morn ;
And peasants say that where she slept
The new moon dipped her horn.
Yet on and on, through shoreless snows
Far tow'rd the bleak north pole,
The foulest wrong the good God knows
Rolled as dark rivers roll ;
While never once for all these woes
Upspake one human soiil.
She toiled, she taught the peasant, taught
The dark-eyed Tartar. He,
Illumined with her lofty thought,
Rose up and sought to be,
What God at the creation wrought,
A man godlike and free.
19
264 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Yet still before him yawned the black
Siberian mines ! And oh,
The knout upon the bare white back!
The blood upon the snow I
The gaunt wolves, close upon the track ,
Fought o'er the fallen so !
And this that one might wear a crown
Snatched from a strangled sire !
And this that two might mock or frown
From high thrones climbing higher,
To where the Parricide looks down
With harlot in desire !
Yet on, beneath the great north star,
Like some lost, living thing,
That long dread line stretched black and far,
Till buried by death 's wing !
And great men praised the goodly Czar
But God sat pitying.
A storm burst forth ! From out the storm
The clean, red lightning leapt !
And lo ! a prostrate royal form . , .
And Alexander slept !
Down through the snow, all smoking warm,
Like any blood, his crept.
Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead!
One red spot in the snow
For one long damning line of red :
While endless exiles go
babe at breast, the mothers head
Bowed down, and dying so !
SONGS OF FREEDOM 265
And did a woman do this deed ?
Then build her scaffold high,
That all may on her forehead read
The martyr's right to die !
Ring Cossack round on royal steed !
Now lift her to the sky !
But see ! From out the black hood shines
A light few look upon !
Lorn exiles, see, from dark deep mines,
A star at burst of daivn / . . .
A thud a creak of hangman's lines
A frail shape jerked and drawn !
The Czar is dead ; the woman dead,
About her neck a cord.
In God's house rests his royal head,
Hers in a place abhorr'd ;
Yet I had rather have her bed
Than thine, most royal lord !
Yea, rather be that woman dead
Than thee, dead-living Czar,
To hide in dread, with both hands red,
Behind great bolt and bar
You may control to the North Pole,
But God still guides his star.
266 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
KIEL: THE REBEL.
[Louis Riel was executed in 1885 for leading an insurrection
of Franco-Indians in the north-west of Canada.]
HE died at dawn in the land of snows,
A priest at the left, a priest at the right ;
The doomed man praying for his pitiless foes,
And each priest holding a low dim light,
To pray for the soul of the dying.
But Windsor Castle was far away,
And Windsor Castle was never so gay
With her gorgeous banners flying !
The hero was hung in the windy dawn
'Twas splendidly done, the telegraph said ;
A creak of the neck, then the shoulders drawn ;
A heave of the breast and the man hung dead,
And, oh ! never such valiant dying !
While Windsor Castle was far away
With its fops and fools on that windy day,
And its thousand banners flying !
Some starving babes where a stark stream flows
'Twixt windy banks by an Indian town,
A frenzied mother in the freezing snows,
While softly the pitying snow came down
To cover the dead and the dying.
But Windsor Castle was gorgeous and gay
With lion banners that windy day
With lying banners flying.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 267
JOHN BEDFORD LENO.
THE NAME OF LIBERTY.
'TWAS shouted aloud at Marathon,
'Twas the cry at Thermopylae,
The name that lit the fiery cross
That passed from sea to sea,
And gathered the clans whom gallant Bruce
Led on to victory.
'Tis a name that fires the souls of men,
And teaches them to dare,
Inspired the brave Von Winkelried
To rush on the foeman's spear,
And struck the tyrant, Gessler, down,
With palsy and \vith fear.
It was breathed on the Mayflower's crowded deck
When she sailed from old England's shore ;
It cheered on the braves of Commonwealth
When they conquered at Marston Moor,
And rang when the patriot Ilampden fell
At the height of the battle's roar.
268 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
It sounded on Warsaw's blood-stained walls,
On Italia's broad campaign,
On the marshy soil of the Netherlands,
'Mid the vine-clad hills of Spain;
And rang aloud when France was swept
By a blood-red hurricane.
It was heard when Venice was pressed in fight,
When Croat and Magyar met.
When the red shirts conquered in Sicily,
When the sun of Austria set,
The name of my love's resounded loud
To the beat of the castanet.
'Tis a name well-known as a rallying cry,
And blessed with a magic spell ;
A name that rose from the shattered host
When Kosciusko fell
The name of the shrine where Hofer knelt
The beacon light of Tell !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 269
EDWARD H. GU2LLAUME.
FREETHOUGHT.
GREAT word, that fill'st my mind with calm delight,
I love to feel, but cannot hope to tell,
How, like the noonday sun, thou dost dispel
The mists of error that impede our sight !
What noble dreams, what yearning hopes excite !
What memories too awake at sound of thee,
Like myriad ripples on a wind-swept sea !
How full and irresistible thy might !
Thou causest to grow pale the tyrant's cheek ;
Thou art the knell that loud proclaims the fall
Of despots and of priests, and those who seek
To crush the human mind beneath their thrall :
Thou dost avenge all wrong, make strong the weak
Nobility and heritage of all 1
270 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ROBERT BUCHANAN.
THE PERFECT STATE.
(FROM "THE DRAMA OF KINGS.")
WHERE is the perfect State
Early most blest and late,
Perfect and bright ?
'Tis where no Palace stands
Trembling on shifting sands
Morning and night.
'Tis where the soil is free,
Where, far as eye may see,
Scattered o'er hill and lea,
Homesteads abound;
Where clean and broad and sweet
(Market, square, lane, and street,
Belted by leagues of wheat),
Cities are found.
Where is the perfect State
Early most blest and late,
Gentle and good ?
'Tis where no lives are seen
Huddling in lanes unclean,
Crying for food ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 271
Tis where the home is pure,
'Tis where the bread is sure,
'Tis where the wants are fewer,
And each want fed ;
Where plenty and peace abide,
Where health dwells heavenly-eyed,
Where in nooks beautified
Slumber the dead.
Where is the perfect State,
Unvexed by Wrath and Hate,
Quiet and just?
Where to no form of creed
Fetter'd are thought and deed,
Reason and trust ?
'Tis where the great free mart
Broadens, while from its heart
Forth the great ships depart
Blown by the wind ;
'Tis where the wise men's eyes,
Fixed on the earth and skies,
Seeking for signs, devise
Good for mankind.
THE LIGHT OF FREEDOM.
LIGHT on the brow
Of the hill of Time,
What light art thou,
Whither all men now
Turn eyes and climb ?
272 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Still gleaming afar,
While the wild days go,
Still shining a Star
In the region of snow :
We crave thee, we cry for thee,
We faint and we sigh for thee,
Thou shinest above,
Yea, we dare die for thee,
Light that we love.
Not yet, O Light,
Alas, not yet,
May we reach the height
Where dim and bright
Thy lamp is set,
Like waves we whiten
In the waste below,
We darken and brighten,
We ebb and we flow :
Dim stretch the heights above
All days and nights above,
Past the storms stream,
Light of all lights above,
Art thou a dream ?
No dream, O far
Sweet Light and strange !
Not as dreams are,
But a throned Star
That doth not change !
O'er the world thou hast gleamed
Since the first dim day :
Dreams have been dream'd
And have passed away,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 273
All dreams have burn'd to thee,
AD days have turn'd to thee,
O Liberty !
And as all have yearned to thee,
We yearn and see !
On the mountain's brow,
Dimly discern'd,
What Light art thou,
Whither all turn now
As they ever turn'd ?
The great earth flowers to thee,
The earth's tongues name thee,
All things, all hours, to thee
Upturn, and claim thee ;
And the world's waves wail for thee,
And our cheeks flash pale for thee,
Yet art thou sure
And though all hopes fail for thee,
Thou shalt endure !
TOM DUNSTAN; OR, THE POLITICIAN.
HOW LONG, O LORD, HOW LONG?
Now poor Tom Dunstan's cold,
All life grows duller;
There's a blight on young and old,
And our talk has lost its bold
Red-republican colour !
274 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Poor Tom was crippled and thin,
But, Lord, if you'd seen his face,
When, sick of the country's sin,
With bang of the fist, and chin
Stuck out, he argued the case !
lie prophesied men should be free,
And the money-bags be bled !
;< She's coming, she's coming ! " said he;
"Courage, boys ! wait and see !
Freedom's ahead ! "
Cross-legg'd on the board we sat,
Like spiders spinning,
Stitching and sweating, while fat
Old Moses, with eyes like a cat,
Sat greasily grinning;
And here Tom said his say,
And prophesied Tyranny's death ;
And the tallow burned all day,
And we stitch'd and stitch'd away
In the thick smoke of our breath.
Poor worn-out slops were we,
With hearts as heavy as lead ;
But "Patience ! she's coming ! " said he;
" Courage, boys ! wait and see !
Freedom's ahead ! "
But Tom was little and weak,
The hard hours shook him ;
Hollower grew his cheek,
And when he began to speak
The coughing took him.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 275
And at last the cheery sound
Of his voice among us ceased,
And we made a purse, all round,
That he mightn't starve, at least.
His pain was awful to see,
Yet there, on his poor sick-bed,
" She's coming, in spite of me !
Courage, and wait ! " cried he ;
" Freedom's ahead ! "
Ay, now Tom Dunstan's cold,
All life seems duller ;
There's a blight on young and old,
And our talk has lost the bold
Red-republican colour.
But we see a figure grey,
And we hear a voice of death,
And the tallow burns all day,
And we stitch and stitch away
In the thick smoke of our breath ;
Ay, while in the dark sit we,
Tom seems to call from the dead
" She's coming ! she's coming ! " says he;
11 Courage, boys ! wait and see !
Freedom's ahead 1 "
276 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THE HON. RODEN NOEL.
ARISE!
A SONG OF LABOUR.
[Written on the formation of Unions for agricultural labourers.]
FROM the long sleep of centuries,
Rise, arise !
Ye will be men at last, not slaves,
From your cradles to your graves ;
Life is dawning in your eyes ;
Arise !
Weary children of the soil,
Who toil and toil !
Patient millions of night.
Turn worn faces to the light,
Piteous hunger in dim eyes,
Arise !
Miserable, dumb, and blind,
Of humankind !
With divinest discontent
Stony souls at last are rent,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 277
Human souls immersed and bowed
In the dark dull earth ye ploughed !
From brute suffering ye break;
Awake !
Murmur men who ruled you, scared :
"What! ye dared,
Doltish bovine bondsmen, ye !
To claim, with accents of the free,
For yourselves, and babes, and wives,
Human lives ! "
Mummied princeling of the past,
Ecclesiast,
Shopman, overshadowing shires,
Dining delegates, and squires,
A moneyed mob aghast and pale,
Rant and rail :
" Who told you, scum of all the earth !
And dashed our mirth ?
Who fold you, rebels, that ye grovel
Hungry and cold in many a hovel,
Or that the famine of your wage
Tortures old age ?
" Who told you ? let him drown for this,
With our bliss !
We, though we leave you ignorant,
Lest ye behold a yawning want,
Doled you gracious doles, and gave
Ghostly cheer to keep you brave ;
Yea, paupers, and we dug your grave f
Ye rave ! "
278 SO1VGS OF FREEDOM.
Stalwart, sturdy sons of toil,
Ne'er recoil !
Dare they threaten violence ?
Form your phalanx deep and dense !
What though tyrants always cry,
When God consumes their tyranny,
" Dare not rouse you from your swound ;
Heaven's order ye confound ! "
Never fear ; be calm, be wise !
Holy fire inflame your eyes !
God shall smite your enemies :
Arise !
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 279
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.
18441890.
RESURGITE!
Now, for the faith that is in ye,
Polander, Sclav, and Kelt !
Prove to the world what the lips have hurled
The hearts have grandly felt.
Rouse, ye races in shackles !
See, in the East, the glare
Is red in the sky, and the warning cry
Is sounding " Awake ! Prepare ! "
A voice from the spheres a hand downreached
To hands that would be free,
To rend the gyves from the fettered lives
That strain toward Liberty !
Greece ! to the grasp of heroes,
Flashed with thine ancient pride,
Thy swords advance : in the passing chance
The great of heart are tried.
20
280 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Poland ! thy lance-heads brighten :
The Tartar has swept thy name
From the schoolman's chart, but the patriot's heart
Preserves its lines in flame.
Ireland ! mother of dolors,
The trial on thee descends :
Who quaileth in fear when the test is near,
His bondage never ends.
Oppression, that kills the craven,
Defied, is the freeman's good :
No cause can be lost for ever whose cost
Is coined from Freedom's blood.
Liberty's wine and altar
Are blood and human right ;
Her weak shall be strong, while the struggle with
wrong
Is a sacrificial fight.
Earth for the people their laws their own
An equal race for all :
Though shattered and few, who to this are true
Shall flourish the more they fall.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 281
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
A VISTA.
SAD heart, what will the future bring
To happier men when we are gone ?
What golden days shall dawn for them,
Transcending all we gaze upon ?
Will our long strife be laid at rest,
The warfare of our blind desires
Be merged in a perpetual peace
And love illume but harmless fires?
Shall faith, released from forms that chain
And freeze the spirit while we pray,
Expect with calm and ardent eyes
The morning of death's brighter day ?
These things shall be ! A loftier race
Than e'er the world hath known, shall rise
With flame of freedom in their souls,
And light of science in their eyes.
They shall be pure from fraud, and know
The names of priest and king no more ;
For them no placeman's hand shall hold
The balances of peace and war.
282 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
They shall be gentle, brave, and strong,
To spill no drop of blood, but dare
All that may plant man's lordship firm
On earth and fire and sea and air.
Nation with nation, land with land,
Inarmed shall live as comrades free ;
In every heart and brain shall throb
The pulse of one fraternity.
They shall be simple in their homes
And splendid in their public ways,
Filling the mansions of the state
With music and with hymns of praise.
In aisles majestic, halls of pride,
Groves, gardens, baths, and galleries,
Manhood and youth and age shall meet
To grow by converse inly wise.
Woman shall be man's mate and peer,
In all things strong and fair and good,
Still wearing on her brows the crown
Of sinless sacred motherhood.
High friendship, hitherto unknown,
Or by great poets half divined,
Shall burn, a steadfast star, within
The calm clear ether of the mind.
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 283
Man shall love man with heart as pure
And fervent as the young-eyed joys
Who chaunt their heavenly songs before
God's face with undiscordant noise.
New arts shall bloom of loftier mould,
And mightier music thrill the skies,
And every life shall be a song,
When all the earth is paradise.
There shall be no more sin, no shame,
Though pain and passion may not die ;
For man shall be at one with God
In bonds of firm necessity.
These things they are no dream shall be
For happier men when we are gone :
Those golden days for them shall dawn,
Transcending aught we gaze upon.
284 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILFRID SCA WEN BL UNT.
A PLEA FOR EGYPT.
(FROM "THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND," 1883.)
I HAVE a thing to say. But how to say it?
I have a cause to plead. But to what ears ?
How shall I move a world by lamentation
A world which heeded not a Nation's tears?
How shall I speak of justice to the aggressors,
Of right to Kings whose rights include all wrong,
Of truth to Statecraft, true but in deceiving,
Of peace to Prelates, pity to the Strong ?
Where shall I find a hearing ? In high places?
The voice of havoc drowns the voice of good.
On the throne's steps ? The elders of the nation
Rise in their ranks and call aloud for blood.
Where ? In the street ? Alas for the world's reason !
Not Peers, not Priests alone this deed have done.
The clothes of those high Hebrews stoning Stephen
Were held by all of us ay, every one.
Yet none the less I speak. Nay, here by Heaven
This task at least a poet best may do,
To stand alone against the mighty many,
And force a hearing for the weak and few.
S01VGS OF FREEDOM. 285
SONNET.
(FROM "IN VINCULIS.")
LONG have I searched the earth for liberty,
In desert places and lands far abroad,
Where neither kings nor constables should be,
Nor any law of Man, alas, or God.
Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood,
These were my quarries, which eternally
Fled from my footsteps fast as I pursued,
Sad phantoms of desire by land and sea.
See, it is ended. Sick and overborne
By foes and fools, and my long chase, I lie
Here, in these walls, with all life's soul forlorn
Herded I wait, and in my ears the cry,
" Alas, poor brothers, equal in Man's scorn,
And free in God's good liberty to die."
286 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE.
A SONG OF SCOTTISH HEROES.
I'LL sing you a song, if you'll hear me like men,
Of the land of the mountain, the rock, and the glen,
And the heroes who bled for the old Scottish cause,
When the Southron insulted our kirk and our laws ;
For we'll make a stand for Scotland yet, the Wallace
and the Bruce,
Though frosty wits may sneer at home, and Cockneys
pour abuse !
With the fire of Robert Burns, and the faith of stout
John Knox,
We'll be more than a match for the smooth English
folks !
In the moor and the mountain, the strath and the glen,
Every rock tells a tale of the brave Scottish men,
Of the high-hearted martyrs, who made the king pause,
When he swindled our freedom, and trampled on our laws
The king lost his head fools may whimper and whine ;
But he lost it, believe me, by judgment divine,
When he came, a crowned traitor, to pick wicked flaws
In the Covenant, the bond of our old Scottish cause.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 287
Our kings were the godly, the grey-plaidcd men,
Who preached on the mountains, and prayed in the glen,
When the weak shuffling Charles, who swore false to the
cause,
Sent his troopers to tramp on the old Scottish laws.
There are prigs who will sneer, there are snobs who will
laugh,
There are fools who will frown, when this bumper I quaff;
But here's to the men, who, like grey granite wa's,
Stood firm, when the Stuart down-trampled our laws.
They bled on the bleak moor, they hung on a tree,
They pined in black dungeons, were drowned in the sea;
But their blood was the cement that soldered our laws,
When they bled for their faith in the old Scottish cause.
Then here's to the men who made monarchs to quail,
Cargill and Cameron, Guthrie, McKail;
Their fame shall be sounded with deathless applause,
Who fought, bled, and died for our kirk and our laws !
For we'll make a stand for Scotland yet, the Wallace
and the Bruce,
Though frosty wits may sneer at home, and Cockneys
pour abuse !
With the fire of Robert Burns, and the faith of stout
John Knox,
We'll be more than a match for the smooth English
folks 1
288 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ERIC MAC KAY.
FROM "A CHORAL ODE TO LIBERTY."
O SUNLIKE Liberty, with eyes of flame,
Mother and maid, immortal, man's Delight !
Fairest and first art thou in name and fame,
And none shall rob thee of thy vested right.
Where is the man, though fifty times a king,
Shall stay the tide, or countermand the spring ?
And where is he, though fifty times a knave,
Shall track thy steps to cast thee in a grave ?
Old as the sun art thou, and young as morn,
And fresh as April when the breezes blow,
And girt with glory like the growing corn,
And undefiled like mountains made of snow.
Oh, thou'rt the summer of the souls of men,
And poor men's rights, approved by sword and pen,
Are made self-certain as the day at noon,
And fair to view as flowers that grow in June.
Look, where erect and tall thy Symbol waits, *
The gift of France to friends beyond the deep,
A lofty presence at the ocean-gates
With lips of peace and eyes that cannot weep ;
* Bertoldi's Statue of Liberty in New York harbour.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 289
A new-born Tellus with uplifted arm
To light the seas, and keep the land from harm
To light the coast at downfall of the day,
And dower With dawn the darkening water-way.
O S2tnlike Liberty, rvith eyes of flame,
Mother and maid, immortal, stern of vow !
Fairest and first art than in name and fame,
And thou shalt ivear the lightning on thy brow !
290 SOJVGS OF FREEDOM.
H. E. CLARKE.
A REBEL RIDING SONG.
RIDE on, ride on, for the night is gone,
And dawn is in the sky,
And overhead in our rebel red
The banners of morning fly.
The starry watch from their places go,
The bugler winds reveillee blow,
And a tryst's to keep with a waiting foe,
Or ever the noon is high.
We watch the flight of the day and night,
The shadows are fain to cling ;
But the sunshafts quiver on field and river,
Night's hosts fly shuddering,
As when we charge through the field that nears
From the level points of our headlong spears
Shall fly the guardsmen and grenadiers
Of our gracious Lord the King.
Ride fast, ride fast, lest the time be past-
Ride, lest they deem us slow ;
Friends may be late, but the tryst of hate
Must be kept to the hour with a foe.
We are ready to fight, we are ready to die,
We are ready for all things except to fly ;
Ride on, ride fast, ride merrily,
Keep time to the song we know.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 291
For we ride along to a stirring song,
And this is the song we sing :
Up with the red ! Bury the dead !
Loud let the bugles ring !
And off with every tonsured pate !
And down with priests and all their prate !
And down with Church, and down with State !
And down with Crown and King !
292 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILLIAM SHEARER-AITKIN.
HURRAH FOR SCOTLAND'S HEROES BRAVE.
O GI'E me pooer to sing a sang,
While on this hill I stand,
And look wi' wond'rous gaze alang
A free and fertile land,
Upon the grund our grandsires trod
In ages lang gone by,
Wha focht for freedom and for God,
And werena feart to die.
Hurrah for Scotland's heroes brave
In ages lang gone by,
Who focht for freedom and for God,
And werena feart to die.
Down there, whaur grows the yellow grain,
Beside the grassy mead,
And up in yonder windin' glen
Whaur sheep and cattle feed,
Lang slandirf stanes mark out the place
They bravely focht and bled,
When tyrant foes wi' ruthless grace
Their country would invade.
While gazing round, methinks I see
These brave, bold-hearted men
Come marching down to pibroch glee
The shaggy, bushy glen,
SOJVGS OF FREEDOM. 293
Donned in tartan plaid and kilt
And shield weel battle-tried,
And hung in buckl'd leathern belt
A broad sword by their side.
Ay, and methinks I see them raise
Their sword above them bare,
And hear them shout their country's praise
With wild defiant air;
Then rush upon their tyrant foes,
When rose the battle-cry,
And hand to hand around them close,
Without a fear to die.
Hurrah for Scotland's heroes brave
In ages lang gone by,
Who focht for Freedom and for God,
And werena feart to die.
294 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ROBERT BIRD.
THE FREEDOM OF THE HILLS.
THERE'S gloom upon yon mountain brow,
There's darkness in yon glen,
No more the white fall sparkles now
In yonder hazy den.
Hushed are the tuneful groves, the sun
Beams not on babbling rills,
Strong hands are taking one by one
The freedom of the hills !
Oh ! what is Scotland's greatest pride ?
Is it her streams and fountains,
Lochs, isles, and dark woods spreading wide ?
Nay ! 'tis her glorious mountains !
Where granite grey, and shingly sheen
Fling back the sun together,
'Mong yellow whins and bracken green,
And fragrant purple heather.
Shall men give up their free resort
That squires, with gun and cartridge,
May have their brief and bloody sport
'Mong pheasant, grouse, and partridge?
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 295
That deer, who seek the lonely place,
To which their trust has drawn them,
May never see a human face
Till murder bursts upon them ?
What climbing Scot could tamely see
Upon a mountainous border,
" This hill path shall alone be free
To sporting lords. By order/'
As well lay tolls upon men's eyes,
Arrest the clouds' swift motion,
Trap the free air, divide the skies,
And parcel out the ocean.
Ye gentle folks who walk in silk,
And dream of feudal vassals,
You're welcome to your hands of milk,
Your gardens, parks, and castles ;
But do not try to filch away
The free paths of the people,
Or ye may hear some sunny day
Th' alarum bell in the steeple.
'Tis ever from the darkest cloud,
Brooding in mourning deep,
That crackling thunder volleys loud,
And jagged lightnings leap ;
And from the gloom o'er wood and lake
A warning murmur thrills,
Woe to the hand that tries to take
The freedom of the hills !
296 SONGS OF FREEDOM,
THE CROFTER'S FAREWELL.
FAREWELL to the cot 'mong the whins and the bracken,
The sand in the bay, and the rocks on the shore,
To deep-sounding Staffa, and beauteous Kyleaken,
I leave thee, perchance to return nevermore.
The birds sing as sweet by thy clear springing fountains,
The sun shines as bright on the hills and the sea,
But o'er thy deep valleys and high, swelling mountains
The soft winds of freedom no longer blow free.
Green straths to the sheep have been given without
measure,
And glens to the deer, for the stranger to kill,
And all for a proud chieftain's profit or pleasure,
Thy clans are dispersed like the mist on the hill.
Where once were the hamlet, the shielings, the gardens,
And rustic contentment and industry dwelt,
Cold hearths, ruined walls, and green mounds are the
wardens
That mark the lost home of the poor vanished Celt.
But who can forget as he treads the red heather,
And hears the lost voices that rise on the breeze,
The men who have gone in their hundreds together
To crowd the dark cities, or cross the wide seas.
I'd rather for life be a poor humble toiler,
With conscience from outrage and cruelty clear,
Than of lonely hearths be a careless despoiler,
To make them the home of the sheep and the deer.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 297
The nation that sleeps while her children are banished,
Who stood like a guard round her wave-beaten shore,
Will some day awake with a cry to the vanished,
A cry for the feet that return nevermore.
My breast heaves with sighs as I leave thee for ever,
To think that man's pleasure should work such deep
woe ;
Forget thy dear mountains? Ah, no, I shall never
Forget thee till Highland blood ceases to flow.
From Law Lyrics.
298 SONGS OF FREEDOM
TIMOTHY D. SULLIVAN.
GOD SAVE IRELAND !
IN MEMORY OF THE EXECUTION OF WILLIAM P.
ALLEN, MICHAEL LARKIN, AND MICHAEL O'BRIEN,
23RD NOVEMBER 1867.
HIGH upon the gallows tree
Swung the noble-hearted Three,
By the vengeful tyrant stricken in their bloom ;
But they met him face to face,
With the courage of their race,
And they went with so^ls undaunted to their doom.
" God save Ireland ! " said the heroes ;
" God save Ireland ! " said they all:
" Whether on the scaffold high
Or the battle-field we die,
Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall ! "
Girt around with cruel foes,
Still their spirit proudly rose,
For they thought of hearts that loved them, far and near ;
Of the millions true and brave
O'er the ocean's swelling wave,
And the friends in holy Ireland ever dear.
" God save Ireland ! " said they proudly ;
<c God save Ireland ! " said they all :
" Whether on the scaffold high
Or the battle-field we die,
Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall ! "
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 299
Climbed they up the rugged stair,
Rung their voices out in prayer,
Then with England's fatal cord around them cast,
Close beneath the gallows tree,
Kissed like brothers lovingly,
True to home and faith and freedom to the last.
" God save Ireland ! " prayed they loudly ;
" God save Ireland ! " said they all :
" Whether on the scaffold high
Or the battle-field we die,
Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall ! "
Never till the latest day
Shall the memory pass away
Of the gallant lives thus given for our land ;
But on the cause must go,
Amid joy or weal or woe,
Till we've made our isle a nation free and grand.
" God save Ireland ! " say we proudly,
" God save Ireland ! " say we all :
" Whether on the scaffold hign
Or the battle-field we die,
Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall ! "
3 oo SONGS OF FREEDOM.
MICHAEL SCANLAN.
[The following poem hag been described as the Marseillaise
of the Fenian movement.]
THE FENIAN MEN.
SEE who come over the red-blossomed heather,
Their green banners kissing the pure mountain air,
Heads erect, eyes to front, stepping proudly together;
Sure Freedom sits throned in each proud spirit there !
Down the hills twining,
Their blessed steel shining,
Like rivers of beauty they flow from each glen
From mountain and valley
'Tis Liberty's rally,
Out, and make way for the Fenian Men !
Our prayers and our tears have been scoffed and derided,
They've shut out God's sunlight from spirit and mind;
Our foes were united and we were divided;
We met, and they scattered us all to the wind :
But once more returning,
Within our veins burning
The fires that illumined dark Aherlow glen,
We raise the old cry anew,
Slogan of Con and Hugh
Out, and make way for the Fenian Men !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 301
We have men from the Nore, from the Suir, and the
Shannon;
Let the tyrants come forth, we'll bring force against
force ;
Our pen is the sword, and our voice is the cannon,
Rifle for rifle, and horse against horse.
We've made the false Saxon yield
Many a red battle-field;
God on our side, we will do so again :
Pay them back woe for woe,
Give them back blow for blow,
Out, and make way for the Fenian Men !
Side by side for this cause have our forefathers battled,
When our hills never echoed the tread of a slave ;
On many green fields, where the leaden hail rattled,
Thro' the red gap of glory they marched to the grave.
And we, who inherit
Their names and their spirit,
Will march 'neath our Banners of Liberty ; then
All who love Saxon law,
Native or Sassenah,
Out, and make way for the Fenian men !
Up for the cause, then, fling forth our green Banners,
From the east to the west, from the south to the north,
Irish land, Irish men, Irish mirth, Irish manners,
From the mansion and cot let the slogan go forth.
Sons of old Ireland, now,
Love you our sireland, now ?
Come from the kirk, or the chapel, or glen :
Down with all faction old ;
Concert, and action bold,
This is the creed of the Fenian Men !
302 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
ERNEST BILTON.
DIVES AND LAZARUS.
DID you ever hear of Dives, who lived in Palestine ?
A marvellous rich man was he, well clothed in superfine.
His table groaned with wealth of food, his wines by
gallons ran
No wonder he grew sleek and stout, just like an alder-
man !
Another man named Lazarus, homeless and sick and
poor,
In hopes to beg the rich man's crumbs, lay at the rich
man's door ;
He heard the sounds of mirth within, but not a friend
had he,
Except the dogs, who licked his sores in silent sympathy.
You'll think it strange that such a thing could
happen here below,
But this was in a far-off land, a long while ago.
Now Dives daily feasted, and was gorgeously arrayed,
Not at all because he liked it, but because 'twas good for
trade ;
That the people might have calico he clothed himself in
silk,
And surfeited himself on cream that they might get the
milk;
SONGS OF FREEDOM, 303
He fed five hundred servants that the poor might not
lack bread,
And had his vessels made of gold that they might get
more lead.
And e'en to show his sympathy with the deserving poor,
He did no useful work himself that they might do the
more.
You'll think this very, very strange, but then of
course you know,
Twas in a far-off country, and a long while ago.
Poor Lazarus at length became too weak with Death to
strive
He was evidently not one of the fittest to survive
So on one frosty night, about a quarter-past eleven,
He looked up at the silent stars, and died, and went to
heaven.
Now Dives too was waxing old, and presently fell ill,
Whereon a lawyer was called in to make a mighty will;
And when Dives' sons and daughters came to hear his
last farewell,
He bade them follow in his steps, then died, and went
to hell !
I don't think God would venture now to treat a
rich man so,
But this was such a long way off and so very
long ago !
304 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
EDITH BLAND (". NESB1T").
ALL IN ALL.
WHEN all the night is horrible with clamour
Of voiceless curses darker than the night,
When light of sun there is not, neither starshine,
Nor any beacon on the hill of Right,
Shine, O thou Light of Life, upon our pathway,
Freedom, be thou our light !
Since all life's ways are difficult and dreary,
And false steps echo through eternity,
And there is nought to lean on as we journey
By paths not smooth as downward paths would be,
We have no other help we need no other ;
Freedom, we lean on thee !
The slave's base murmur and the threat of tyrants,
The voice of cowards who cringe and cry " Retreat,"
The whisper of the world, " Come where power calls
thee ! "
The whisper of the flesh, " Let life be sweet."
Silence all these with thy divine commanding ;
Guide thou thy children's feet !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 305
For thee, for thee we bear the cross, the banner,
For thee are all our battles fought and won ;
For thee was every prayer we ever uttered,
For thee has every deed of ours been done ;
To thee we press to thee, triumphant splendour
O Freedom, lead us on !
Where thou shalt lead we do not fear to follow.
Thou hast our hearts ; we follow them in thee.
Spirit of Light, whatever thou shalt show us,
Strong in the faith, we shall not fear to see ;
We reach to thee through all the waves of darkness
Of all the days to be.
306 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JAMES LEIGH JO YNES.
THE ROLL-CALL OF THE AGES.
HARK the voice of every nation
'Mid its toil and tribulation
Working out its own salvation,
Pressing onward to the goal .
Bidding no man turn or tarry,
Bidding each his burden carry,
Till the bride her bridegroom marry,
Till earth's wounded hearts be whole ;
Till the world-wide Revolution,
In its triumph of ablution,
Sweep each outworn institution
Down the flood Time's waters roll.
Hark to those who went before us,
Hero hearts whose death-pangs bore us,
Us they call to swell their chorus,
Though they know not of our name.
Let us follow where they lead us,
Caring nought who hate or heed us,
For the sake of them that need us
Recking lightly of the shame.
Our's the faith that wins believers,
Our's it is to scorn deceivers,
Our's to know the world's great weavers
Of the storied weft of fame.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 307
What though all our hopes were failing,
Every effort unavailing,
All our music turned to wailing,
All our hearts with grief foredone ;
Though our story were forgotten,
And no grace or glory gotten,
Though our faith and friends prove rotten,
Though thick night blot out our sun
Let them threaten us or palter,
Let them proffer gold or halter,
We at least will never falter
In the race we have to run.
Nay, no threat can e'er appal us,
No mishap that may befall us ;
Hark, the voice of those that call us
From the silence of the tomb.
Saying, " Our's the world-old story;
Is not this enough of glory,
To have paved the way before ye
Ere we went unto our doom ?"
Yea, we cry, though darkness hide ye,
Yet a little while abide ye,
We give thanks that still beside ye
E'en for us too there is room.
3o8 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
FRED HENDERSON.
THE VOICE OF FREEDOM.
LOUD across the world it ringeth, we have heard it in
our sleep
We have heard and we have wakened, though our
slumbering was deep.
Many a man whose heart nigh failed him in the long and
weary night
Now with soul aglow is watching for the dawning of the
light.
And the voice o'er all the nations has gone forth upon
the wind,
Bearing hope to those despairing, sight to those who
wandered blind.
"Wake, oh men," the loud voice crieth, "wake, if ye
be men indeed ;
Will ye sleep and slumber ever, bound to serve a tyrant's
greed?
Surely all too long, oh toilers, have ye been the slaves of
gold ;
Are ye men, or have ye quite forgotten of your sires of old ?
Hope not Freedom from the masters who reap pleasure
from your pain ;
All the freedom they would give you is but lengthening
of the chain.
When they see ye pale and restless, they may lengthen it
a whit,
Soothing y$ the while to slumber, that ye be content
with it,
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 309
Shake it from you altogether : come, clasp hands, the
night is late,
And the golden dawn is flushing round about the eastern
gate."
And we rise, our chains upon us, at the voice that thrills
us through.
Lo, the piteous sight that greets us : we are but a
weakened few,
And around us lie our comrades, knowing not the bonds
they wear,
Seeing not the light we gaze at, feeling not the hope we
bear.
Loudly, loudly let us call them. See them rising one
by one,
Till our little band grows stronger underneath the rising
sun.
Free we must be. In our souls the seraph voice of
Liberty
Thrills till every chord is trembling as a harpstring's
melody.
See, the clouds begin to scatter ; brighter, brighter
grows the day ;
Happy we to see the morning hold the long, long night
at bay !
We, the toilers, shall no longer be the passive driven
slaves ;
We have seen a nobler future. What though pierced
with many graves
Be the way that leads to freedom ? Shall we shun the
glorious day
Though our very names should perish in the eagerness of
fray?
Lo, our hearts are set upon it, and our feet are on the road :
Burn the bridge, and let us forward, on to Liberty's
abode !
3 io SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WALTER CRANE.
FREEDOM IN AMERICA.
WHERE is thy home, O Freedom? Have they set
Thine image up upon a rock to greet
All comers shaking from their wandering feet
The dust of the old world bondage, to forget
The tyrannies of fraud and force, nor fret,
Where men are equal, slavish chain unmeet ;
Nor bitter bread of discontent to eat,
Here, where all races of the earth are met ?
America ! beneath thy banded flag
Of old it was thy boast that men were free,
To think, to speak, to meet, to come, to go.
What meaneth then the gibbet and the gag
Held up to Labour's sons who would not see
Fair Freedom but a mask a hollow show ?
SONGS OF FREEDOM, 311
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
HEIRS OF TIME.
INSCRIBED TO EDWARD BELLAMY.
FROM street and square, from hill and glen
Of this vast world before my door,
I hear the tread of marching men,
The patient armies of the poor.
The halo of the city's lamps
Hangs, a vast torchlight, in the air;
I watch it through the evening damps ;
The masters of the world are there.
Not ermine-clad or clothed in state,
Their title-deeds not yet made plain,
But waking early, toiling late,
The heirs of all the earth remain.
Some say, by laws as fixed and fair
As guide the planets in their sweep,
The children of each outcast heir
The harvest-fruits of time shall reap.
99
312 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
The peasant brain shall yet be wise,
The untamed pulse grow calm and still ;
The blind shall see, the lowly rise
And work in peace Time's wondrous will.
Some day, without a trumpet's call,
This news will o'er the earth be blown :
" The heritage comes back to all !
The myriad monarchs take their own ! "
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 313
JAMES JEFFRE Y ROCHE.
FOR THE PEOPLE.
WE are the hewers and delvers who toil for another's
gain,
The common clods and the rabble, stunted of brow and
brain.
What do we want, the gleaners, of the harvest we have
reaped ?
What do we want, the neuters, of the honey we have
heaped ?
We want the drones to be driven away from our golden
hoard ;
We want to share in the harvest ; we want to sit at the
board ;
We want what sword or suffrage has never yet won for
man,
The fruits of his toil God promised when the curse of toil
began.
We have tried the sword and sceptre, the cross and the
sacred word,
In all the years, and the kingdom is not yet here of the
Lord.
Is it useless, all our waiting ? Are they fruitless, all our
prayers ?
Has the wheat, while men were sleeping, being over-
sowed with tares ?
3 i4 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
What gain is it to the people that a God laid down his
life,
If, twenty centuries after, his world be a world of strife ?
If the serried ranks be facing each other with ruthless
eyes,
And steel in their hands, what profits a Saviour's sacrifice?
Ye have tried, and failed to rule us ; in vain to direct
have tried.
Not wholly the fault of the ruler, not utterly blind the
guide ;
Mayhap there needs not a ruler, mayhap we can find the
way.
At least ye have ruled to ruin, at least ye have led astray.
What matter if king or consul or president holds the
rein,
If crime and poverty ever be links in the bondman's
chain ?
What careth the burden-bearer that Liberty packed his
load.
If Hunger presseth behind him with a sharp and ready
goad?
There's a serf whose chains are of paper ; there's a king
with a parchment crown ;
There are robber knights and brigands in factory, field,
and town.
But the vassal pays his tribute to a lord of wage and
rent;
And the baron's toll is Shylock's, with a flesh-and-blood
per cent.
SOA'GS OF FREEDOM. 315
The seamstress bends to her labour all night in a narrow
room ;
The child, defrauded of childhood, tiptoes all day at the
loom.
The soul must starve, for the body can barely on husks
be fed ;
And the loaded dice of a gambler settle the price of
bread.
Ye have shorn and bound the Samson and robbed him of
learning's light ;
But his sluggish brain is moving, his sinews have all their
might.
Look well to your gates of Gaza, your privilege, pride,
and caste !
The Giant is blind and thinking, and his locks are
growing fast.
3i6 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
FRANCIS A. FAHY.
A REBEL HEART.
FROM rebel veins my life I drew,
In rebel arms I lay,
From rebel lips the lessons knew
That led me day by day;
And rocked to rest on rebel breast,
And nursed on rebel knee,
There woke and grew, for weal or rue,
A rebel heart in me.
A rebel heart, a rebel heart !
From taint of thraldom free ;
God strengthen still, through good and ill,
A rebel heart in me !
My home was where the Moher heights
Rise rugged o'er the wave,
And nature's scenes and nature's sights
Forbade me live a slave.
The billows on the crag that crashed
Still thundered " Liberty " !
And at the cry throbbed fast and high
The rebel heart in me.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 317
I read my country's chequered page,
I sang her deathless songs,
I wept her woes from age to age,
And burned to right her wrongs:
And when I saw to British law
She never bent the knee,
Oh, prouder yet for Ireland beat
The rebel heart in me.
I've wandered east, I've wandered west,
'Mid scenes and faces strange,
And passing years have in my breast
Worked many a wondrous change:
One hope of old still firm I hold,
And cold in earth I'll be,
Ere breaks or fails or sinks or quails
The rebel heart in me.
A rebel heart, a rebel heart !
From taint of thraldom free;
God strengthen still, through good and ill,
The rebel heart in me !
318 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
FANNY PARNELL.
18481882.
POST MORTEM.
SHALL mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country !
Shall mine eyes behold thy glory ?
Or shall the darkness close around them, ere the sun-
blaze
Break at last upon thy story ?
When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle,
As a sweet new sister hail thee,
Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence,
That have known but to bewail thee ?
Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises,
When all men their tribute bring thee ?
Shall the mouth be clay, that sang thee in thy squalor,
When all poets' mouths shall sing thee?
Ah ! the harpings and the salvos and the shoutings
Of thy exiled sons returning !
I should hear, though dead and mouldered, and the
grave-damps
Should not chill my bosom's burning.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 319
Ah ! the tramp of feet victorious ! I should hear them
'Mid the shamrocks and the mosses,
And my heart should toss within the shroud and quiver,
As a captive dreamer tosses.
I should turn and rend the cere-clothes round me,
Giant sinews I should borrow,
Crying, " O my brothers, I have also loved her,
In her loneliness and sorrow.
" Let me join with you the jubilant procession,
Let me chant with you her story ;
Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks
Now mine eyes have seen her glory."
320 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
JOHN BARLAS ("Evelyn Douglas").
LE JEUNE BARBAROUX.
[Charles Barbaroux, the ablest and most enthusiastic of the
Girondists, a friend of the minister Roland, was proscribed by
Robespierre in 1793, and, after a year's wandering, was cap-
tured and guillotined.]
PASSENGER, pilgrim in the land of fear,
The sound of Death's feet growing in thine ear,
The sight of Death's face rising on thy view,
What change in thee since this time yester-year !
Young Barbaroux.
Bright-haired Apollo with the hero's eyes,
That dreamest dreams too fair for earthly skies,
Man free and equal, all things fair and true,
What shadows dark across thy dream arise ?
Young Barbaroux.
Where now thy France ? where now the chosen band
Of thy companions? where the fair Roland?
All these are gone, and what thing left to you?
Perchance the gallows in some foreign land!
Young Barbaroux.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 321
Faithful to death, unchanged by fear or grief,
Clinging, brave boy, to thy sublime belief,
Clasp to thy heart the poor red, white and blue ;
The seed shall spring yet from the ruined sheaf,
Young Barbaroux.
The flag, that covered France too short a while
With holy shade, now fear and blood defile,
And through the world deep threatening storm-
clouds brew.
Look through to clearer heavens beyond, and smile,
Young Barbaroux.
Freedom, her arm outstretched but lips firm set,
Freedom, her eyes with tears of pity wet,
But her robe splashed with drops of bloody dew,
Freedom, thy goddess, is our goddess yet,
Young Barbaroux.
Freedom, that tore the robe from kings away,
That clothed the beggar-child in warm array,
Freedom, the hand that raised, the hand that slew,
Freedom, divine then, is divine to-day,
Young Barbaroux.
We drown, we perish in a surging sea;
We are not equal, brotherly, nor free;
Who from this death shall stoop and raise us? who?
Thy Freedom, and the memory of such as thee,
Young Barbaroux.
322 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
STANZAS FROM "THE GOLDEN CITY."
THEY be happy men that dwell there
In that serene abode;
They have no heaven nor hell there,
Nor fear of fiend or god ;
Each by his soul's light steering,
Not resting, neither veering,
Nor coveting nor fearing
The recompense or rod.
There gorgeous Plato's spirit
Hangs brooding like a dove,
And all men born inherit
Love free as gods above;
There each one is to other
A sister or a brother,
A father or a mother,
A lover or a love.
And the seer's words take measure,
And thought is music-shod,
And the young man sings of pleasure
With the wisdom of a god,
And the old man's mystic dreaming
Is of faith beyond the seeming,
Of the shifting ocean teeming
With the isles where Truth has trod.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 323
Of the dim-eyed captives fettered
In the cave of spectral night,
And the rays on darkness scattered
By the sun of truth and light,
Of the Love that leads us higher,
And nigher still and nigher
To the fount of light and fire,
To the source of Good and Right.
And the spray of myrtle chases
The bowl around the board,
And they chant with glowing faces,
And they smite the thrilling chord
To the love of youth and woman,
To the goddess of the true man,
To the Freedom of all human,
And her champion the sword.
3=4 SOWGS OF FREEDOM.
SYDNEY OLIVIER.
TO A REVOLUTIONARY POET.
BECAUSE you could not choose to cramp
Your stripling soul in custom's mail,
Nor prate the catchwords of the camp,
Nor strive to shine, nor fear to fail,
Therefore your soul was made aware
Of many secrets of the air.
Because you could not choose but hear
The weary rumour underground,
Though all your fellows closed their ear,
Or knew no meaning in the sound,
Therefore your ear and voice grew free
Of all the moods of melody.
Because from week to week you wrought
Through Rhyme or Reason to make plain
The burden of our age's thought
For toiling and untutor'd men,
You earned a master-craftsman's skill
To marshal words to speak your will.
SOA'GS OF FREEDOM. 32;',
Because your heart was wont to move
Less for its own than other's pain,
Because you did not fear to love
With only loving for your gain,
The tedious years have had no power
Your sturdy cheerfulness to sour.
Comrade, because your soul was free,
Because in strife with gloom and wrong
Your ear and pen learnt mastery,
Because your heart was blithe and strong,
Therefore for us these songs of yours
Breathe of the beauty that endures.
3*6 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
WILLIAM MORRIS.
ALL FOR THE CAUSE !
HEAR a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing
nigh,
When the Cause shall call upon us some to live, and
some to die !
He that dies shall not die lonely, many an one hath gone
before,
He that lives shall bear no burden heavier than the life
they bore.
Nothing ancient is their story, e'en but yesterday they
bled,
Youngest they of earth's beloved, last of all the valiant
dead.
E'en the tidings we are telling was the tale they had to
tell,
E'en the hope that our hearts cherish, was the hope for
which they fell.
In the grave where tyrants thrust them, lies their labour
and their pain,
But undying from their sorrow springeth up the hope
again.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 327
Mourn not therefore, nor lament it that the world out-
lives their life;
Voice and vision yet they give us, making strong our
hands for strife.
Some had name and fame and honour, learn'd they were,
and wise and strong,
Some were nameless, poor, unlettered, weak in all but
grief and wrong.
Named and nameless all live in us; one and all they lead
us yet
Every pain to count for nothing, every sorrow to forget.
Hearken how they cry, " Oh, happy, happy ye that ye
were born
In the sad slow night's departing, in the rising of the
morn ;
" Fair the crown the Cause hath for you, well to die or
well to live,
Through the battle, through the tangle, peace to gain or
peace to give."
Ah, it may be ! Oft meseemeth, in the days that yet
shall be,
When no slave of gold abideth 'twixt the breadth of sea
to sea,
Oft, when men and maids are merry, ere the sunlight
leaves the earth,
And they bless the day beloved, all too short for all their
mirth,
23
328 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Some shall pause awhile and ponder on the bitter days of
old,
Ere the toil of strife and battle overthrew the curse of
gold;
Then 'twixt lips of loved and lover solemn thoughts of us
shall rise ;
We who once were fools and dreamers, then shall be the
brave and wise ;
There amidst the world ne\v-builded shall our earthly
deeds abide,
Though our names be all forgotten, and the tale of how
we died.
Life or death then, who shall heed it, what we gain or
what we lose ?
Fair flies life amid the struggle, and the Cause for each
shall choose.
Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing
nigh,
When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and
some to die !
NO MASTER.
SAITH man to man, We've heard and known
That we no master need
To live upon this earth, our own,
In fair and manly deed ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 329
The grief of slaves long passed away
For us hath forged the chain,
Till now each worker's patient day
Builds up the House of Pain.
And we, shall we too crouch and quail,
Ashamed, afraid of strife ;
And lest our lives untimely fail
Embrace the death in life ?
Nay, cry aloud and have no fear ;
We few against the world ;
Awake, arise ! the hope we bear
Against the curse is hurl'd.
It grows, it grows: are we the same,
The feeble band, the few ?
Or what are these with eyes aflame,
And hands to deal and do ?
This is the host that bears the word,
No MASTER, HIGH OR Low,
A lightning flame, a shearing sword,
A storm to overthrow.
THE MARCH OF THE WORKERS.
WHAT is this, the sound and rumour ? What is this that
all men hear,
Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is draw-
ing near,
Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear ?
'Tis the people marching on.
330 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
Whither go they, and whence come they ? What are
these of whom ye tell ?
In what country are they dwelling 'twixt the gates of
heaven and hell ?
Are they mine or thine for money? Will they serve a
master well ?
Still the rumour's marching on.
Hark the rolling of the thunder !
Lo the sun ! and lo thereunder
Riseth wrath and hope and wonder,
And the host comes marching on.
Forth they come from grief and torment ; on they wend
toward health and mirth,
All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the
earth,
Buy them, sell them for thy service ! Try the bargain
what 'tis worth,
For the days are marching on.
These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment,
win thy wheat,
Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into
sweet,
All for thee this day and ever. What reward for them
is meet,
Till the host comes marching on ?
Many a hundred years passed over have they laboured,
deaf and blind ;
Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil
might find.
Now at last they've heard and hear it, and the cry comes
down the wind,
And their feet are marching on.
SONGS OP FREEDOM. 331
O ye rich men, hear and tremble ! for with words the
sound is rife :
" Once for you and death we laboured ; changed hence-
forward is the strife.
We are men, and we shall battle for the world of men
and life,
And our host is marching on."
" Is it war, then ? Will ye perish as the dry wood in the
fire?
Is it peace? Then be ye of us, let your hope be our
desire.
Come and live ! for life awaketh, and the world shall never
tire ;
And the hope is marching on."
"On we march, then, we the workers, and the rumour
that ye hear
Is the blended sound of battle and deliv'rance drawing
near;
For the hope of every creature is the banner that we
bear,
And the world is marching on."
Hark the rolling of the thunder !
Lo the sun ! and lo thereunder
Riseth wrath and hope and wonder,
And the host comes marching on.
332 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
A DEATH SONG.
What cometh here from west to east awending ?
And who are these, the marchers stern and slow ?
We bear the message that the rich are sending
Aback to those who bade them wake and know.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.
We asked them for a life of toilsome earning,
They bade us bide their leisure for our bread ;
We craved to speak to tell our woful learning :
We come back speechless, bearing back our dead.
They will not learn ; they have no ears to hearken.
They turn their faces from the eyes of fate ;
Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken.
But, lo ! this dead man knocking at the gate.
Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison ;
Amidst the storm he won a prisoner's rest ;
But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen
Brings us our day of work to win the best.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 333
FRANCIS W. L. ADAMS.
OUTSIDE LONDON.
(FROEM TO "SONGS OF THE ARMY OF THE NIGHT.")
IN the black night, along the mud-deep roads,
Amid the threatening boughs and ghastly streams,
Hark ! sounds that gird the darknesses like goads,
Murmurs and rumours and reverberent dreams,
Tramplings, breaths, movements, and a little light-
The marching of the Army of the Night!
The stricken men, the mad brute-beasts are keeping
No more their places in the ditches and holes,
But rise and join us, and the women, weeping
Beside the roadways, rise like demon-souls.
Fill up the ranks ! What shimmers there so bright ?
bayonets of the Army of the Night!
Fill up the ranks ! We march in steadfast column,
In wavering lines yet forming more and more;
Men, women, children, sombre, silent, solemn,
Rank follows rank like billows to the shore.
Dawnwards we tramp, towards the day and light.
On, on and /, the Army of the Night!
354 SONGS Of FREEDOM.
IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE.
THE stars shone faint through the smoky blue ;
^ The church-bells were ringing ;
Three girls, arms laced, were passing through,
Tramping and singing.
Their heads were bare ; their short skirts swung
As they went along ;
Their scarf-covered breasts heaved up, as they sung
Their defiant song.
It was not too clean, their feminine lay,
But it thrilled me quite
With its challenge to task-master villainous day
And infamous night,
With its threat to the robber rich, the proud,
The respectable free.
And I laughed and shouted to them aloud,
And they shouted to me !
" Girls, thafs the shout, the shout we shall utter
When, with rifles and spades,
We stand, with the old Red Flag aflutter,
On the barricades ! "
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 335
"ANARCHISM."
'Tis not when I am here,
In these homeless homes,
Where sin and shame and disease
And foul death comes j
'Tis not when heart and brain
Would be still and forget
Men and women and children
Dragged down to the pit :
But when I hear them declaiming
Of " liberty," " order," and " law/
The husk-hearted gentleman
And the mud-hearted bourgeois,
That a sombre hateful desire
Burns up slow in my breast
To wreck the great guilty temple,
And give us rest.
TO ENGLAND.
I.
THERE was a time when all thy sons were proud
To speak thy name,
England, when Europe echoed back aloud
Thy fearless fame :
23*
336 SOA'GS OF FREEDOM.
When Spain reeled shattered helpless from thy guns
And splendid ire,
When from Canadian snows to Indian suns
Pitt's soul was fire.
O that in days like these were, fair and free
From shame and scorn,
Fate had allowed, benignly, pityingly,
That I was born !
O that, if struck, then struck with glorious wounds,
I bore apart
(Not torn with fangs of leprous coward hounds)
My bleeding heart !
II.
We hate you not because of cruel deeds
Staining a glorious effort. They who live
Learn in this earth to give and to forgive,
Where heart and soul are noble and fate's needs
Imperious: No, nor yet that cruel seeds
Of power and wrong you've sown alternative,
We hate you, we your sons who yet believe
That truth and justice are not empty creeds !
No, but because of greed and golden pay,
Wages of sin and death : because you smother
Your conscience, making cursed all the day.
Bible in one hand, bludgeon in the other,
Cain-like you come upon and slay your brother,
And, kneeling down, thank God for it, and pray !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 337
in.
I whom you fed with shame and starved with woe,
I wheel above you,
Your fatal vulture, for I hate you so,
I almost love you !
I smell your ruin out. I light and croak
My sombre lore,
As swaggering you go by, O heart of oak
Rotten to the core !
Look westward ! Ireland's vengeful eyes are cast
On freedom won.
Look eastward ! India stirs from sleep at last.
You are undone !
Look southward, where Australia hears your voice,
And turns away !
O brutal hypocrite, she makes her choice
With the rising day !
Foul Esau, you who sold your high birthright
For gilded mud,
Who did the wrong, and, priest-like, called it right,
And swindled God !
The hour is gone of insult, pain and patience ;
The hour is come
When they arise, the faithful mightier nations,
To drag y oti down I
338 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
IV.
England, the land I loved
With passionate pride,
For hate of whom I live
Who for love had died,
Can I, while shines the sun,
That hour regain
When I again may come to thee
And love again ?
No, not while that flag
Of greed and lust
Flaunts in the air, untaught
To drag the dust !
Never, till expiant
I see you kneel,
And brandished gleams aloft
The foeman's steel !
Ah, then to speed, and laugh,
As my heart caught the knife:
" Mo i her, I love you ! Here,
Here is my life! "
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 339
EDWARD CARPENTER.
THE SMITH AND THE KING.
A SMITH upon a summer's day
Did call upon a King ;
The King exclaimed, "The Queen's away,
Can I do anything?"
" I pray you can," the Smith replied ;
"I want a bit of bread."
"Why?" cried the King. The fellow sighed
"I'm hungry, sire," he said.
" Dear me ! I'll call my Chancellor,
He understands such things ;
Your claims I cannot cancel, or
Deem them fit themes for kings."
" Sir Chancellor, why here's a wretch
Starving like rats or mice ! "
The Chancellor replied, " I'll fetch
The First Lord in a trice."
The First Lord came, and by his look
You might have guessed he'd shirk ;
Said he, " Your Majesty's mistook,
This is the Chief Clerk's work."
340 SOA T GS OF FREEDOM.
The Chief Clerk said the case was bad,
But quite beyond his power,
Seeing it was the Steward had
The keys of cake and flour.
The Steward sobbed : " The keys I've lost,
Alas ! but in a span
I'll call the Smith. Why, Holy Ghost !
Here is the very man."
"Hurrah ! hurrah ! " they loudly cried,
" How cleverly we've done it !
We've solved this question, deep and wide,
Well-nigh ere we'd begun it."
1 ' Thanks ! " said the Smith ; " O fools and vile,
Go rot upon the shelf!
The next time I am starving I'll
Take care to help myself."
ENGLAND, ARISE!
ENGLAND, Arise ! the long, long night is over,
Faint in the east, behold the dawn appear ;
Out of your evil dream of toil and sorrow-
Arise, O England, for the day is here ;
From your fields and hills,
Hark ! the answer swells
Arise, O England, for the day is here !
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 541
By your young children's eyes so red with weeping,
By their white faces aged with want and fear,
By the dark cities where your babes are creeping,
Naked of joy and all that makes life dear ;
From each wretched slum
Let the loud cry come ;
Arise, O England, for the day is here !
People of England ! all your valleys call you,
High in the rising sun the lark sings clear,
Will you dream on, let shameful slumber thrall you ?
Will you disown your native land so dear ?
Shall it die unheard
That sweet pleading word ?
Arise. O England, for the day is here !
Over your face a web of lies is woven,
Laws that are falsehoods pin you to the ground,
Labour is mocked, its just reward is stolen,
On its bent back sits Idleness encrowned.
How long, while you sleep,
Your harvest shall It reap?
Arise, O England, for the day is here !
Forth, then, ye heroes, patriots and lovers !
Comrades of danger, poverty, and scorn !
Mighty in faith of Freedom your great Mother !
Giants refreshed in Joy's new-rising morn !
Come and swell the song,
Silent now so long :
England is risen ! and the day is here.
342 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
THE AGE-LONG WAR.
(FROM "TOWARDS DEMOCRACY.")
I HEARD the long roar and surge of History, wave
after wave as of the never-ending surf along the immense
coast-line of West Africa.
I heard the world-old cry of the down-trodden and
outcast : I saw them advancing always to victory.
I saw the red light from the guns of established order
and precedent the lines of defence and the bodies of the
besiegers rolling in dust and blood yet more and ever
more behind !
And high over the inmost citadel I saw magnificent,
and beckoning ever to the besiegers, and the defenders
ever inspiring, the cause of all that never-ending war
The form of Freedom stand.
WHAT IS FREEDOM?
AND so I heard a voice say What is Freedom ?
I have heard (it said) the lions roaring in their dens; I
have seen the polyp stretching its arms upwards from the
floor of the deep ;
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 343
I have heard the cries of slaves and the rattling of
their chains, and the hoarse shout of victims rising against
their oppressors; I have seen the deliverers dying calmly
on the scaffold.
I have heard of the centuries-long struggle of nations
for constitutional liberty the step-by-step slowly-won
approaches as to some inner and impregnable fastness ;
I know the wars that have been waged, the flags flying
to and fro over the earth; I know that one tyranny has
been substituted for another, and that the forms of
oppression have changed ;
But what is Freedom ?
Villeins and thralls become piece-men and day-tal
men, and the bondsmen of the land become the bonds-
men of Machinery and Capital; the escaped convicts of
Labour fit admiringly the bracelets of Wealth round their
own wrists. .
I have seen the slaves of Opinion and Fashion, of
Ignorance and of Learning, of Drink and Lust, of Chastity
and Unchastity:
One skin cast leaves another behind, and that another,
and that yet another;
I have seen over the world the daily fear of Death and
Hell, of Pain and momentary overhanging Chance ;
I have seen recluses craning their lives up into im-
possible heavens, thinkers hopelessly meditating after
philosophic Truth, incurables lying covered with bed-
sores, household drudges running from the hearth to the
slopstone and from the slopstone to the hearth all their
lives;
Something of all these slaveries I know they are very
well in their way
But what is Freedom?
344 SONGS OF FREEDOM.
And I heard (in the height) another voice say :
I AM.
In the recluse, the thinker, the incurable and the
drudge, I AM. I am the giver of Life, I am Happiness.
I am in the good and evil, in the fortunate and the
unfortunate, in the gifted and the incapable, alike; I am
not one more than the other.
The lion roaring in its den, and the polyp on the floor
of the deep, the great deep itself, know ME.
The long advances of history, the lives of men and
women the men that scratched the reindeer and mam-
moth on bits of bone, the Bushmen painting their rude
rock-paintings, the mud-hovels clustering round mediaeval
castles, the wise and kindly Arab with his loving boy-
attendants, the Swiss mountain-herdsman, the Russian
patriot, the English mechanic,
Know ME. I am Happiness in them, in all under-
lying. I am the Master showing myself from time to
time as occasion serves ;
I am not nearer to one than the other ; they do not
seek me so much as I advance through them.
Out of all would YOU emerge ?
Would you at last, O child of mine, after many toils
and endless warfare (for without such all is in vain)
emerge and become MY EQUAL ?
(Wonderful, wonderful is this I tell you ! Would
you too become a Master when you have seen and
known all slaveries, and have ceased to put one before
the other )
Would you, whom I have often silently been with, to
whom in the early morning I have come kissing you on
the lips to leave Happiness for your waking, whom I
have taught long and long my own ways, even for this
SONGS OF FREEDOM. 345
become my Equal? would you look me at last in the
face?
It shall be then. The way is long, but the centuries
are long. Faint not. Does my voice sound distant ?
Faint not.
Even now for a moment round your neck, advancing,
I stretch my arms ; to my lips I draw you, I press upon
your lips the seal of a covenant that cannot be forgotten.
C~.i'7r:AL C VLAT1CN
CHILDREN'S ROOM
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LI.Ml'ltD, FELLING-ON-TYNE.
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